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UNDER BOW BELLS 



A CITY BOOK FOR ALL READERS. 



EY 



JOHN HOLLINGSHEAD. 




LONDON : 
GEOOMBEIDGE AND SONS, 



-HIS" 



LONDON: 

THOMAS HAEBILD, P^J^Rj SALISBURY SQUi 
FLEET STEEET. 



TO 



WILLIAM MOT THOMAS, ESQ. 



DEAR WILLIAM, 

Dedications are somewhat out op fashion ; 
but while something op the custom still remains, i 
would not willingly let this, my piest book, go out 
without your name. 

Take it, then, in token of our long friendship 
and constant companionship — a friendship which, though 
stretching back far into our time of caps and jackets, 
has not had one cloudy day. 

Believe me, 
Yours sincerely and affectionately, 

JOHN HOLLINGSHEAD. 

London, October, 1859. 




v/3 



PREFACE. 



The twenty-five stories and sketches which compose 
this book are selected from certain papers written and 
published by me, during the last two years, in the 
cc Household Words," They have been popular with 
the public and the press in a periodical form ; and I 
hope they will not lose any of their popularity or 
readable quality in the form of a book. They have 
been placed together because they all deal with, or 
revolve round, one centre — the City; and being 
written with this design of future united republica- 
tion, they fall naturally into their appointed places, 
without any elaborate introduction, any material 
alteration, or any laboured connecting link. This 
gives them their claim to their first title of " Under 
Bow Bells." Their second title of ( ' A City book for 
all Readers" is given to them because, in accordance 
with the leading principle of the journal in which 
they originally appeared, they have endeavoured to 
retain some degree of fancy and imagination, while 
touching upon the driest subjects. 



VI PREFACE. 

In narrating the different stories and sketches, I 
am always speaking through the mouth of imaginary 
persons, except in the paper called Ci All Night on 
the Monument." 

Of course I am personally responsible for all 
opinions contained in the book ; but the paper in ques- 
tion is a descriptive record of my actual experience. 

In conclusion, I have to thank Mr. Charles 
Dickens for the permission to republish. 

John Hollingshead. 

London, October, 1859. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. — The City op Unlimited Papee . . 1 

II. — My Lost Home . . . . .16 

III. — Too Weak poe the Place ... 37 

IV.— All Night on the Monument . . .44 

V. — Beistles and Flint .... 58 

VI. — The End op Eoedyce Beothees . . 78 

VII. — Passing the Time .... 105 

VIII. — Railway Nightmaees .... 112 

IX. — HOW I PELL AMONGST MONSTEES . . 126 ' 

X. — Wanted, a Seceetaey .... 133 

XL — My Two Paetnees .... 146 

XII.— Pooe Tom.— A City Weed . . .163 

XIII. — Vestiges op Peotection . . . 177 

XIV.— Domestic Castle-Building . . . 185 

XV.— Debt 203 

XVI. — Bankeuptcy in Six Easy Lessons . . 210 

XVII. — White Washeeton .... 216 

XVIII. — Buying in the Cheapest Maeket . . 224 

XIX. — Twenty Shillings in the Pound . . 233 

XX. — The Applicted Duke op Spindles . . 242 

XXL— Good-Will ..... 257 

XXII. — Debtoe and Ceeditoe .... 265 

XXIII. — The Innocent Holdee Business . . 277 

XXIV.— An Executoe . . . . .291 

XXV.— New Puppets poe Old Ones . . 303 



UNDER BOW BELLS. 



THE CITY OF UNLIMITED PAPER. 



Within a certain circle, of which Bow Church is 
the centre, lie the ruins of a great paper city. Its 
rulers — solid and substantial as they appear to the 
eye — are made of paper. They ride in paper car- 
riages; they marry paper wives, and unto them are 
born paper children; their food is paper, their 
thoughts are paper, and all they touch is trans- 
formed to paper. They buy paper and they sell 
paper ; they borrow paper, and they lend paper — 
a paper that shrinks and withers in the grasp like 
the leaves of the sensitive plant; and the stately- 
looking palaces in which they live and trade are 
built of paper — small oblong pieces of paper, which, 
like the cardboard houses of our childhood, fall with 
a single breath. That breath has overtaken them, 
and they lie in the dust. Let me collect the scat- 
tered pieces, and build them up into such another 
variety of trembling structures as they formed be- 
fore ; as they form now ; or as, in a few years, they 
will undoubtedly form again. 



A UNDER BOW BELLS. 

Our first paper-house is the firm of Collaps, 
Vortex, Docket, and Company, general merchants. 
It is quiet and unobtrusive in appearance, being in 
Tobacco Lane, Fenchurch Street ; and its small office 
has not had its windows cleaned for thirty years, 
which gives it a favourable appearance of solidity. 
The leading peculiarity of this firm is ramification ; 
and it is remarkable for the harmony and beauty of 
its complex machinery. The senior partner, Mr. 
Collaps, is a merchant of the old school. There is a 
fund of credit in his shoe-buckles, and in the heavy 
yellow family coach that comes to fetch him of an 
afternoon. Mr. Vortex affects an almost Quakerish 
severity of attire; he attends to the discounting 
department, and the chairmanships and director- 
ships of those important and choice public companies 
which he finds so useful in consolidating the credit 
of the house. Mr. Docket is a copy of Mr. Vortex, 
some fifteen years younger ; he attends to the work- 
ing part of the business, whatever that may 
be; superintends the clerks, answers troublesome 
inquiries, and is supposed to buy and sell all the 
merchandise. The ramifications of the house ex- 
tend to most cities of importance in England, 
abroad, and the colonies. In Glasgow there is the 
branch firm of M f Vortex and Company, who have 
established friendly relations with all the leading 
"banks, and whose paper, drawn upon the substantial 
firm of O'Docket and Company of Dublin, is <( done " 



THE CITY OF UNLIMITED PAPEK. 6 

without a whisper, at the minimum rate. The sub- 
stantial firm of 0' Docket and Company of Dublin 
enjoys the highest credit that can be obtained by a 
long course of regular trading in the land of gene- 
rous sympathies and impulsive genius; and their 
paper, upon the highly respectable firm of M 'Vortex 
and Company, of Glasgow, is much in demand, at 
very low rates of discount indeed. Then there is 
Alphonse Collaps and Company of Paris ; the great 
house of Collaps Brothers, at Calcutta; Vortex, 
Collaps, and Docket, of San Francisco; Docket 
Brothers and Collaps, of New York; Collaps, Collaps, 
and Company, of the Cape of Good Hope; Vortex, 
Docket, and Vortex, of Melbourne, Australia ; and 
Vortex Brothers and Docket, of Montreal, Canada. 
These all draw and feed upon each other as their 
necessities require ; and the parent firm of Collaps, 
Vortex, Docket, and Company, of Tobacco Lane, 
London, watches over its obedient children with a 
more than fatherly interest, and trades upon their 
acceptances to the extent of millions. Formerly the 
great London house used to stop payment during 
every commercial panic, — their credit preventing the 
necessity of their doing so at any other time. Now, 
they have grown too wise and important to do that. 
It is not that their trade has become in any degree 
sounder or more legitimate, but the accumulated 
liabilities of many years have swelled their transac- 
tions into such gigantic proportions, that the mere 



4 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

whisper of any difficulty to the Governor and Com- 
pany of the Bank of England causes a representa- 
tion to be made to our paternal government, whose 
mission it is to foster, protect, and accommodate 
trade ; and it is agreed that such a public calamity 
as the suspension of Messrs. Collaps, Vortex, Docket, 
and Company must be prevented at any cost. It is 
prevented by the suspension of the Bank Charter 
Act instead; an extra issue of Bank of England 
notes is authorized, with a government guarantee in 
case there should not be gold to exchange for them ; 
and commerce — ill-used commerce — breathes again. 
My next house is the firm of Messrs. Ignes, Eatui, 
and Company, the extensive and eccentric shippers, 
of Skye Chambers, Old Broad Street, who are always 
on the search for new markets, and who have very 
peculiar notions of the requirements of distant 
countries. They are constantly sending large cargoes 
of damask tablecloths and silver toothpicks to the 
Sandwich Islands; or-molu clocks to Tierra del 
Euego ; and pianos, articles of vertu, and Birmingham 
idols to the southern coast of Africa. They import, 
in return, for the London market, tomahawks, 
heathen gods and goddesses carved out of stumps of 
trees, with occasionally a Holy Eamily, painted by 
some intelligent native Baffaele of Mozambique, in 
which the mother and child, with very thick lips and 
sable skins, are evidently doing well. Messrs. Ignes, 
Fatui, and Company are not so particular as they 



THE CITY OF UNLIMITED PAPER. 

might be about the nature of their shipments, 
because they find great facilities in obtaining loans 
upon paper, called bills of lading — a system of 
pawning ships' cargoes — and if the goods should be 
returned unsaleable a year hence, injured by time, 
sea-water, and with the accumulated charges of 
freight and interest upon their backs, what matter ? 
The loan has supplied funds to send out other and 
equally well-assorted cargoes ; so that, as fast as one 
payment falls due another loan is obtained, and the 
whole system is kept up like the brass balls which 
the juggler tosses in the air. Whenever a vessel is 
lost without being properly insured; whenever an 
Australian mail brings intelligence that heaps of 
costly rubbish are rotting on the wet, glutted wharves 
of Melbourne, we may guess in a moment that both 
the vessel and the goods are the property of Messrs. 
Ignes, Fatui, and Company, and look for a suspension 
of the firm that will set all things right, and furnish 
gossip for the Money Market for about four-and- 
twenty hours. 

Another well-known paper-house is the house of 
Strawboy and Rag, the Manchester warehousemen, 
of Fustian Lane, Wood Street. Strawboy had been 
a buyer in a large City establishment, where he 
learned to regard returns as of more importance than 
either the quality of the business done, or the profits 
derived from it. Strawboy therefore went in for 
large returns. Rag had been chief-clerk in the same 



D UNDER BOW BELLS. 

establishment; and finding, after deeply studying the 
theory of trade, that the accommodation-bill entered 
so largely into every transaction, he had come at last 
to regard it— like some eminent financiers do the in- 
convertible bank-note — as the basis of all wealth, and 
had started the extensive business of Strawboy and 
Rag, with nothing but his own ingenuity, Strawboy's 
broad chest, double-breasted waistcoat, and reputed 
energy, and a pile of bill-stamps of all denomina- 
tions. Mr. Rag's calculations were based upon a 
knowledge of how many small traders in the out- 
skirts of London, in London itself, and throughout 
the country, were maintaining a position that was not 
required by the existing demands of trade, or that 
they were not qualified to fill, either by ability or 
capital. It was with these small over-traders that 
Messrs. Strawboy and Rag opened negotiations, and, 
in consideration of reviving their languishing credit, 
founded about one hundred and twenty drawing- 
posts or bill- stations, with power to manufacture 
bills upon them to an unlimited extent. The de- 
mands of such a business of course consumed whole 
mountains of goods, and the manufacturers were 
delighted ; the discounts of such a business of course 
required whole mines of monej^, and the bankers were 
delighted. Strawboy — who always affected a rough, 
hearty character — used to refer with pride at public 
dinners to the excessive lowness of his origin. He 
worked in a brick-field when a boy, for twopence a- 



THE CITY OF UNLIMITED PAPER. 7 

day, and lie dated his prosperity from the time when 
he became an errand-boy and drudge in a City ware- 
house at half-a-crown a-week. Mr. Rag was more 
reserved — the gentleman of the firm — and he put his 
views upon the currency in the shape of a pamphlet, 
called Is Money to be the Master or the Slave of the 
People ? It is a pity that such a promising state of 
things was not destined to endure. The crash came 
at last; and, although they very nearly persuaded 
the National Bank to render them assistance, 
Messrs. Strawboy and Hag were obliged to submit to 
the fall. 

The next house that rises before me is that of 
Messrs. Bibb and Tucker, of Consol Court, Thread- 
needle Street. It is not easy to say what the exact 
business of Messrs. Bibb and Tucker is. I have 
known and watched them for many years, and I 
profess myself totally unable to form an opinion, 
unless I decide that they are merchants who exist for 
the purpose of failing every three years, under cir- 
cumstances that command the general sympathy of 
their creditors. Bibb is a man who gives you the 
impression of being a remarkably simple and straight- 
forward man ■ in fact, so general is this impression, 
that he is known in the money market as ( ' honest 
George Bibb." Tucker is a man who, according to 
his own account, if his inclinations had been con- 
sulted, would rather have been in the church ; but as 
his father desired to see him enrolled in the ranks of 



8 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

commerce, he obeyed his father, and took his place 
amongst the merchants of the city, where he hopes 
he always endeavours to do his duty. 

When the periodical failures of Bibb and Tucker 
take place, there is generally, for such apparently 
quiet people, a rather large amount of debts, and a 
very large amount of liabilities ; but although a con- 
siderable quantity of property is always unaccountably 
sucked up, the dividend proposed never falls below 
twelve shillings and sixpence in the pound ; and, as 
their transactions are always rigidly confined to cre- 
ditors who belong to the old-fashioned class of mer- 
chants, who look upon a man's word as his bond — 
and a very good bond, too — there is never any scru- 
tiny demanded, or any troublesome questions asked, 
and the very respectable dividend always carries them 
through triumphantly, with the presentation of a 
piece of plate. Once — and once only — they broke 
the uniformity of their composition by paying eleven 
shillings in the pound ; but they restored the balance 
the next time, by increasing the dividend to fourteen 
shillings. 

The next house is the well-known manufacturing 
house of Lacker, Crane, and Company, of Packing- 
case Yard, Lower Thames Street, and Dunmist Mills, 
near old Humdrum, Inverness-shire. The premises 
in Packingcase Yard are modest enough, and would 
not seem to indicate a business of a very extensive 
character; but, in this instance, the art of the en- 



THE CITY OF UNLIMITED PAPER. 9 

graver is called in, and we are presented upon invoices 
and bill-stamps with a nattering and highly sugges- 
tive view of the important and busy Dunmist Mills 
of which the small office in London is only one of 
the numerous agencies. There are water-power and 
steam-power; high chimneys sending forth volumes 
of smoke ; long ranges of out-buildings with groups 
of busy work-people, and large, solid bales of mer- 
chandise ; bridges and tramways, and waggons loaded 
with raw material, drawn by struggling horses of 
the Flemish breed, towards the crowded gates of 
this industrious settlement. The whole is a work of 
imagination of the highest order, alike creditable 
to the designer and the engraver. When, in the 
usual course of things, the house of Lacker, Crane, 
and Company is compelled to call its creditors 
together, and an inspection of the magnificent factory, 
outworks, and plant takes place by the order of the 
assignees, the dissolving view of the industrial hive, 
with its active work-people and its din and clatter of 
machinery, gradually recedes, and in its place stands 
the pastoral simplicity of a couple of barns, and a 
kilted shepherd tending his flocks. 

My next paper-house is that of Baggs and Com- 
pany, of Nabob Buildings, Leadenhall Street, in the 
East India trade. Baggs and Company would have 
been commercially defunct many years since, but for 
a most fortunate occurrence — they were joined at 
their last gasp by young Mr. Curry, the only son of 



10 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

the great East Indian director of that name. The firm 
of Curry, Baggs, and Company was a very different 
concern from the languishing firm of Baggs and 
Company. Its credit was good to any amount ; for 
many persons confounded the name of Curry with 
old Curry, and they did not stay to undeceive them- 
selves. Others spoke about the great wealth of old 
Curry — wealth that he must have; spoke about 
young Curry being the only son and a great favourite 
— a very great favourite; spoke about the praise- 
worthy care of a father desirous of seeing his son 
comfortably settled in commerce before he finally 
retired from the busy scene. Old Baggs made hay 
while the sun shone* One morning old Curry com- 
mitted suicide. Upon inquiry it was found that he 
was not only very much behind the world, but that 
he had a large number of forged bills in the hands of 
Helter, Spelter, and Company, who rather prefer that 
exceptional branch of the trade in paper, because they 
have found, from a long experience, that forged docu- 
ments, as a rule, while they yield the highest rate 
of interest, furnish the greatest amount of security. 
Young Curry, instead of taking any capital into the 
tottering firm had, on the contrary, drawn a few 
thousands out of it as a premium for the use of his 
valuable financial name. 

My next structure is the old historical banking- 
house of Fossil, Ingot, and Bagstock, in Bullion 
Alley. It was founded in the time of Charles II. 



THE CITY OF UNLIMITED PAPER. 11 

Take up any book upon the Antiquities of London, 
and you will always find a chapter devoted to the 
house in which the business is carried on. Take 
up any collection of commercial anecdotes, and you 
will find how, in periods of financial panic, the 
great house of Fossil alone stood unshaken. You 
will read how the stout-hearted, cool-headed Fossil, 
when his bank was subjected to a severe pressure, 
during the reaction of the South Sea scheme, stood 
at his door and shovelled the guineas into baskets 
out of a dust-cart. You will read how he went to a 
neighbouring banker, who was in sore distress, and, 
slapping him on the back, said, " Centum, my boy, 
I have placed a couple of millions to your credit, and 
if you want any more, you know where to send for 
it." When it was announced, the other day, that 
Fossil, Ingot, and Bagstock had closed their doors, 
the public could not credit it. Although the fact was 
too plain to be denied, they fell back upon the asser- 
tion that the suspension could only be temporary, as 
old Fossil's property alone would pay everybody, and 
yield an enormous surplus. This flattering supposi- 
tion had also to be given up ; for, to the general con- 
sternation, it was found, upon inquiry, that old 
Fossil — in fact, all the Fossils — had been dead sixty- 
five years, and that there had been none of their 
capital in the bank for more than half a century. 

Unlike his predecessors, who were all striving to 
make something out of nothing, John Taster was 






12 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

equally energetic in trying to make nothing out of 
something. By a long course of industry and care 
in the wholesale cheese trade, John had amassed a 
fortune of about one hundred thousand pounds. His 
life, dull and monotonous enough, had been passed 
in that very mouldy warehouse on the ground-floor 
of one of the dampest houses in Lower Thames Street, 
posting a greasy ledger in a small box, called a 
counting-house, which was lighted with gas the whole 
of the livelong day. There was not much about John 
which indicated a poetic temperament ; he was fat and 
florid, and his voice was thick, coming through the 
nose. Yet was he, perhaps, one of the most imagi- 
native men that ever breathed. His imagination 
was active not passive ; it did not take the form of 
dreams; it developed itself in a practical business 
way. John Taster threw himself and his capital into 
the Garden of Eden Eailway Company (Limited), 
Some people say he originated the scheme ; but this 
I cannot believe : one thing, however, is certain, the 
company professed to be limited, and it was limited^ 
I am sorry to say, to John, and John's capital. The 
mind that for so many years had been devoted to the 
uncongenial, but profitable, pursuit of selecting and 
selling cheese, was now feeding upon honey-dew, and 
drinking the milk of Paradise. He gave up the 
business in Lower Thames Street, and fixed his eyes 
with the intensity and steadiness of an Indian fakir 
upon the East. His fortune was lost ; but his faith 



THE CITY OF UNLIMITED PAPER. 13 

was firm, and, as he cannot now feed his darling 
scheme with gold, he has become, like the rest, a 
man of paper. 

My next house is compounded of the Etna and 
Vesuvius Joint Stock Bank, Filch Lane, London, 
and the great builders and contractors, Messrs. 
Chaos, Rotbill, and Clay, of Bankside. Mr. M f Va- 
cuum, who was installed as sole manager of the Etna 
and Vesuvius Bank, with an enormous salary, is one 
of those extraordinary men which the City creates ; 
men of wide experience, large grasp of intellect, and 
great decision of character. As a proof of his great 
influence in the City, and the respect which was paid 
to him by the commercial community, before the 
doors had been opened for business two months, the 
Bank numbered amongst its clients the names of 
Messrs. Collaps, Vortex, and Docket ; Ignes, Fatui, 
and Company; Strawboy and Bag; Bibb and 
Tucker; Lacker, Crane, and Company; Curry and 
Baggs — and, greater even still, the leviathan house 
of Chaos, Rotbill, and Clay. M'Vacuum being a 
man of a discerning mind, soon discovered the 
peculiar ability of the latter firm, and the result 
was an arrangement by which, in consideration of 
M 'Vacuum granting the use of the Bank for unli- 
mited facilities, Messrs. Chaos, Rotbill, and Clay 
were to begin the well-known building settlement of 
New Babylonia, granting M' Vacuum a secret share 
in the profits. Suddenly the great marsh of East 



14 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

Babel sprang into life. Suddenly upon the dismal 
swamp arose the plan of New Babylonia. Suddenly 
shoals of bills of exchange appeared in the Money 
Market — and especially in the accounts of the Etna 
and Vesuvius Bank — drawn upon hodmen, car- 
penters, bricklayers, carters, and labourers, whose 
names became as familiar to capitalists as those of 
Messrs. Fossil, Ingot, and Bagstock themselves. 
Suddenly came the general crash, and paralysed 
enterprise left New Babylonia — the hideous night- 
mare — the paper monster — which it remains at the 
present time. There are the long streets of carcases, 
with awful gulfs and pitfalls of cellars ; there is the 
outline of a grand square filled with heaps of gravel, 
rubbish, old broken bricks, pieces of iron, and slabs of 
paving-stone half hidden in the yielding clay ; there 
are large rafters of timber, round which the long 
damp grass has grown; and there is a deep pool of 
rain-water, in which float rotten planks that venture- 
some urchins have formed into a raft ; there is the 
fragment of a church, and a frontage that might have 
been intended for a chapel or a literary institution ; 
there are large ghastly shells of mansions, some with 
broken, weather-beaten stucco fronts, some with 
ruined porticoes half completed, some with cloud- 
capped garret window holes, staring far away across 
the misty country; and there are frameworks of 
shops through Tvhich the distant fields are seen as in 
a picture. It is the home of the rag-picker and the 



THE CITY OF UNLIMITED PAPER. iO 

tramp ; silent and awful as a city of the dead ; silent 
as the grave of sunken capital should be ; silent and 
undisturbed as when, in the middle of a summer's 
day, three thousand workmen streamed slowly from 
the place, never to return. 



16 



MY LOST HOME. 



In the still hours of the night ; in the evening rest 
from labour — when the twilight shadows darken my 
solitary room, and oftentimes in the broad glare of 
day, amongst the eager, busy merchants upon 'Change 
— it comes before me : the picture of my lost shadowy 
home. So dim and indistinct at times seems the 
line that separates my past from my present self; so 
dream-like seem the events that have made me the 
hunted outcast which I am, that, painful as my his- 
tory is, it is a mental relief to me to go over it step 
by step, and dwell upon the faces of those who are 
now lost to me for evermore. 

It seems but yesterday — although many years 
have passed away — that I was in a position of trust in 
the counting-house of Askew, Dobell, and Picard. A 
quaint, old, red-brick house it was; standing in a 
court-yard, up a gateway, in a lane in the City, lead- 
ing down to the river. I see it as plainly as if it 
stood before me now, with the old cherubim carving 
over^the door- way; the green mossy stones in the 
yard ; the twelve half-gallon fire-buckets hanging up, 
all painted with the City arms; the long, narrow 
windows, with their broad, flat wooden frames ; the 
dark oaken rooms, especially the one where I used to 



MY LOST HOME. 17 

sit, looking out into the small, square burial-ground 
of a church, with half-a-dozen decayed, illegible 
tombstones; frail memorials of old Turkey merchants, 
who were born, who lived, and who died under the 
shadow of the one melancholy tree that waved before 
my window ; the long dark passages, with more fire- 
buckets ; and the large fireplaces, with their elaborate 
fluted marble mantel- shelves and pilasters. 

I entered the service of those old merchants about 
the age of sixteen, fresh from the Blue-Coat School ; 
a raw, ungainly lad, with no knowledge or experience 
of the world, and with a strong letter of recommen- 
dation from the head master, which procured me a 
junior clerkship. Our business was conducted with 
a steady tranquillity — an almost holy calm — in har- 
mony with the place, which had the air of a sacred 
temple dedicated to commerce. I rose step by step ; 
till at last, about the age of thirty, I attained the 
position of a first-class clerk. My advance was not 
due to any remarkable ability that I had displayed ; 
nor because I had excited the interest of any member 
of the firm, for I seldom saw the faces of my em- 
ployers. It was purely the result of a system which 
ordained a general rise throughout the house when 
any old clerk died, or was pensioned off. Old Mr. 
Askew, the founder of the house — a man, so tradition 
said, who had once been a porter at the doorway 
which now owned him for master — had practically 
retired from business to a similar quaint old mansion 

c 



18 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

at Stoke Newington. He never came to the City more 
than twelve times a-year, to inspect the monthly ba- 
lances ; and then he only remained about an hour. 
He did not even know the names of half the people in 
his employment. Mr. Dobell, the second partner, was 
twenty years younger than Mr. Askew; active, de- 
cisive, and retiring : a man whose whole mind was 
devoted to his business, and who looked upon us all as 
only so many parts of a machine for carrying out his 
objects. The third partner in the firm, Mr. Picard, 
was a man of a very different stamp from the other 
two. At one period he had been our managing clerk, 
and he obtained his share in the business in the same 
year that I entered the house. He was of French 
extraction; thin, sallow, with small gray eyes, and 
light sandy hair. His age, at the time I am writing 
of, must have been near fifty. Although his origin was 
very obscure — some of our old clerks remembering 
him walking about the docks in an almost shoeless 
state — his pride was very great, and his harshness, 
sternness, and uneasy, fretful, and ever-conscious 
attempts at dignity, were a painful contrast to the 
quiet, off-hand manner of Mr. Dobell, or the vene- 
rable and dreamy calmness of old Mr. Askew. He 
was a bad-hearted, cold, calculating man — a man 
with a strong, reckless will ; who allowed nothing to 
stand between him and his self-interest. When he 
came into authority, and had his name put up as one 
of the firm, his humble relations were removed to a 



MY LOST HOME. 19 

distance; and a poor old Irishwoman, who had kept 
a fruit- stall upon sufferance under our gateway for 
many years, was swept away, because he felt that she 
remembered him in the days of his poverty. 

My position and duties required me to live in the 
house, and to take charge of the place. When I 
married, I took my wife, Esther, to our old City 
home, and our one child, little Margaret, was born 
there. The child was a little blue -eyed, fair-haired 
thing ; and it was a pleasing sight to see her, between 
two and three years of age, trotting along the dark 
passages, and going carefully up the broad oaken 
stairs. On one occasion she was checked by the 
order of Mr. Picard for making a noise during 
business hours; and, from ten to five, she had to 
confine herself to her little dingy room at the top of 
the house. She was a great favourite with many of 
the old childless clerks, who used to bring her pre- 
sents of fruit in the summer mornings. Scarcely a 
day passed but what I stole an hour — my dinner 
hour — to play with her; and, in the long summer 
evenings, I carried her down to the river to watch 
the boats. Sometimes, on Sundays, I took her out 
of the City into the fields about Canonbury, and 
carried her back again loaded with buttercups. She 
was a companion to me — oftentimes my only com- 
panion, with her innocent prattle, and gentle, winning 
ways — for my wife, Esther, was cold and reserved in 
her manners, with settled habits, formed before our 



20 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

marriage. She was an earnest Baptist, and attended 
regularly three times a-week, a chapel for that per- 
suasion, in Finsbury. My home often looked cheer- 
less enough, when little Margaret had retired to bed, 
and my wife's empty chair stood before me ; but I 
did not complain — it would not have been just for 
me to do so — for I knew Esther's opinions and habits 
before I married her ; yet I thought I discerned, 
beneath the hard sectarian crust, signs of a true, 
womanly, loving heart; signs, amongst the strict 
faith and stern principles, of an affection equal to my 
own. I may have been mistaken in her, as she was 
mistaken — oh, how bitterly mistaken — in me ! Her 
will was stronger than mine, and it fretted itself 
silently, but incessantly, in vain endeavours to lead 
me along the path she had chosen for herself. She 
may have misunderstood my resistance, as I may 
have misapprehended her motives for desiring to alter 
my habits and tone of thinking. There were pro- 
bably faults and errors on both sides. 

Thus we went on from day to day ; Esther going 
in her direction and I going in mine, while the child 
acted as a gentle link that bound us together. 

About this time Mr. Askew finally retired from 
business, and there was a general step upward 
throughout the house : Mr. Picard getting one degree 
nearer absolute authority. The first use that he 
made of his new power was to introduce an only son 
into the counting-house who had not been regularly 



MY LOST HOME. 21 

brought up to the ranks of trade; but who had 
received, since his father's entrance as a member of 
the firm, a loose, hurried, crammed, half-professional 
education, and who had hovered for some time be- 
tween the choice of a lawyer's office and a doctor's 
consulting-room. He was a high-spirited young man, 
whose training had been of that incomplete character, 
which had only served to unsteady him. He had his 
father's fault of a strong, reckless will, unchecked 
by anything like his father's cold, calculating head ; 
though tempered by a virtue that his father never 
possessed — an open-hearted generosity. As he had 
everything to learn, and was a troublesome pupil, he 
was assigned to my care. His writing-table was 
brought into my office, and I had plenty of opportu- 
nity of judging of his character. With all his errors 
and shortcomings — not to say vices — it was impossible 
not to like him. There is always a charm about a 
free, impulsive nature that carries the heart where 
the judgment cannot follow. Surrounded, as I had 
been for so many years, by the restraints imposed by 
persons who made me feel that they were my masters, 
and with little congeniality and sympathy in my do- 
mestic relations, I gave myself up, perhaps too freely 
and unreservedly, to the influence of young Mr. 
Picard's society. Although more than ten years his 
senior, I held and claimed no authority over him ; his 
more powerful will and bolder spirit holding me in 
subjection. I screened the fact of his late arrivals, 



22 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

and Lis frequent absences, by doing bis work for 
him ; and, for anything that Mr. Dobell or his father 
knew, he was the most promising clerk in the house. 
Little Margaret soon found him out, and took a 
childish liking to him. He was never tired of play- 
ing with her ; and seldom a week passed that he did 
not bring her something new in the shape of toys or 
sweetmeats. My evenings at home, which used to be 
solitary, were now solitary no longer : either he came 
and kept me company, unknown to his father — who 
would have been indignant at his associating with one 
of the ordinary clerks — or (which was most fre- 
quently the case) I accompanied him in his evening 
rambles about town. The gulf between me and 
Esther was greatly widened. 

Thus our lives went on in the old City mansion, 
with little variety, until our child completed her 
third year. 

Young Mr. Picard had been absent from the 
office for more than a week, and illness, as usual, was 
pleaded as the cause. In about four days more, he 
returned, looking, certainly, much thinner and paler 
than usual. I did not question him then as to the 
real cause of his absence ; for there were arrears to 
work up, and he did not seem in a communicative 
humour. This was on a Saturday. On the follow- 
ing Monday, at about two o'clock in the afternoon, 
he brought in a cheque for five hundred pounds, 
drawn by the firm upon our bankers, Messrs. Burney, 



MY LOST HOME. 23 

Holt, and Burney, of Lombard Street. This, lie 
told me, was an amount he had got his father and 
Mr. Dobell to advance him for a short period, to 
enter upon a little speculation on his own account, 
and he gave it to me to get changed when I went 
down to the bankers to pay in money on the same 
afternoon. In the meantime he induced me to give 
him two hundred pounds on account, out of the cash 
that I, as cashier, had received during the day. 
Shortly afterwards he went away, saying he would 
receive the other portion in the morning. I went to 
the bankers that afternoon, cashed the cheque for 
five hundred pounds, returned the two hundred to my 
cash charge, paid it in to the credit of the firm, and 
returned to the office with the three hundred pounds 
in my possession, in bank-notes, for young Mr. Picard 
when he came in the morning. I never saw him 
again, and never shall, in this world. 

As to the cheque — it was a forgery. The bankers 
had discovered it later in the evening, and I was 
taken into custody, with the bank notes in my 
pocket-book, by a Bow Street officer, acting under 
Mr. Picard senior's orders. My wife was not at 
home. Casting, therefore, one hurried glance at my 
poor, unconscious, sleeping child — a glance in which 
were concentrated the love and agony of a lifetime — 
I turned my back upon the old house to go with the 
officer to the appointed prison. 

The next morning, at the preliminary examina- 



24 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

tion before a magistrate, the charge was made out. 
I gave my explanation ; but young Mr. Picard was 
not to be found, and unsupported as I was by any 
evidence, with a string of circumstances so strongly 
against me, what could I expect ? I was fully com- 
mitted, and removed to Newgate to take my trial at 
the ensuing sessions. 

Prostrated with grief and shame, I passed the 
first night in my dismal cell, in stupor rather than 
sleep ; broken by thoughts of my lost home. My 
poor dear child seemed to me to be removed to an 
immeasurable distance — to belong to another world 
— and even my cold, passionless wife appeared in 
warmer and more wifely colours, and my heart was 
softened towards her. I felt as if I had left her, in 
the morning, full of health and strength, and had 
returned at nightfall to find her dead. I had gone 
carefully back through my past life, recalling oppor- 
tunities that I had purposely avoided for reconcilia- 
tion; magnifying little tendernesses of hers into acts 
of great and loving-kindness, and dwelling with self- 
reproach upon those bitter hours when I resented 
what I thought was cold indifference. 

In the morning I was fully aroused from my 
dream to the horrors of my position. I was inno- 
cent in the eyes of Heaven — innocent in the eyes of 
the law ; but, for all that, I had met by anticipation 
the fate of the commonest felon. I was innocent, 
at present, in the eyes of the law ; but I was herded 



MY LOST BOMB. 25 

without discrimination with the vilest outcasts of 
society. My short diurnal walk was taken in the 
common prison-yard, with burglars, pickpockets, and 
all the varied shapes of crime, and I was thankful 
when I was not dogged by the bloody footsteps of 
the murderer. Although innocent, at present, in 
the eyes of the law, I had to take my share in ad- 
ministering the internal economy of my prison. I 
had to scrub and wash and keep cleanly a por- 
tion of the gaol, lest any physical taint should come 
where there was so much moral pollution. I had to 
take my turn in sweeping the yard, that the dainty 
feet of the professional thief might not be soiled 
with his morning^s promenade. Even now, after the 
lapse of years, worn down as I am by sorrow and 
long suffering, when I think of the treatment I re- 
ceived while awaiting my trial, my blood boils. 

The first morning, at the visiting half-hour al- 
lowed by the prison regulations, from twelve to half- 
past, I was stopped in my short impatient walk by 
hearing my name called by the turnkey : my wife 
had come to see me. I went to the grating where 
stood many of my fellow-prisoners talking to their 
wives and friends, and making room against the bars, 
I brought myself face to face with Esther. There, 
outside another barrier, between which and my own 
walked the officer on duty, she stood with her cold, 
passionless face looking sterner and paler than usual; 
her thin lips firmly compressed, and her keen gray 



26 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

eyes fixed upon me with a searching, dubious ex- 
pression. Thinking of the place I was in, and the 
character of my companions, whose voices, without 
one tone of sorrow or remorse, were busy around 
me; feeling cold, dirty, and miserable, and looking 
from all this upon Esther as she stood there before 
me in her Quakerish dress, and neat, clean respecta- 
bility, I wavered for a moment in the belief of my 
innocence, and felt that there was an impassable gulf 
between us, which my desponding heart told me 
would never be bridged over. 

"Esther," I said, "has young Mr. Picard been 
heard of? Is little Margaret well ? Do my employers 
really believe me guilty ? " 

" Itandall," she answered, in a calm, clear voice, 
" your own heart must tell you whether young Mr. 
Picard will ever be found. Our child, thank God, is 
well, and too young to know the great grief and 
shame that have fallen on us. Mr. Dobell has care- 
fully avoided speaking to me upon the subject of your 
suspected crime, but Mr. Picard believes you guilty." 

Though I could not clearly see the expression of 
her face, broken up as it was into isolated features 
by the double row of intervening bars, I felt that her 
eyes were fixed curiously upon me, and the tone of her 
voice, as she said this, told me that I was suspected — 
suspected even of crime far deeper than forgery ! A 
cold shudder passed across my heart, and the old 
feeling of antagonism came back again to harden me. 



MY LOST HOME. 27 

" Ptandall/' she continued in the same emotion- 
less tone, "some money that I had saved for the 
child, I have devoted to your defence, and to pro- 
curing you certain comforts which you will sadly 
need here. If you are guilty pray to be forgiven : 
if you are innocent, pray — as I and Margaret will 
pray — that this dark cloud may pass from us." 

Her voice lingered in my ear, although she had 
left the place. I returned to pace the stone yard of 
the prison. At night, as I lay awake upon the hard 
bed, those cold words, so full of duty but so want- 
ing in love, still rang in my ears, resting like bars 
of lead upon my heart. In a neighbouring cell 
were two cheerful rogues, free from all mental care, 
calmly planning crimes yet unperpetrated. A dark, 
defiant spirit was on my soul. I thought, perhaps, 
I should have been as happy, if I had been as guilty 
as they. I fell into a short, uneasy sleep, in which 
little Margaret appeared to me standing at the gate- 
way of the old mansion, with her slight dress flutter- 
ing in the wind. She was looking up and down the 
lane, and crying for a missing friend who did not 
come ; and the faces of the cherubim in the carving 
over the gate were turned in pity upon her. 

Twice again Esther visited me : still with the 
same story — for young Mr. Picard had not been 
found ; still with the same tone ; still with the same 
look. At length, the day of trial came. As I stood 
in the dock, the first person my eye fell upon in the 



28 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

court was Mr. Picard ; his sallow face looking sallower 
than ever, his small gray eyes peering quickly and 
sharply about him. He was there to watch over his 
family honour ; to obtain a conviction at any cost, 
and to favour the belief that I had either murdered 
his son, or had compelled him to keep out of the way. 
Esther was there, too, following the proceedings with 
quiet intensity; her face fixed as marble, and her 
eyes resting upon me the whole time without a tear. 
It was over at last, the long painful trial, and I was 
convicted; sentenced to transportation for life. I 
saw the triumph on Mr. Picard' s features ; and, with 
glazed eyes I saw Esther leave the court with her 
dark veil closely drawn over her face. She stooped, 
and, I thought, sobbed ; but I saw her no more. In 
a few weeks I was on the high seas, proceeding to a 
penal settlement. Often in the dead of night the 
vision of my fatherless child weeping in the gateway 
of the old mansion passed before me, and sometimes 
I heard her little gentle voice in the wailing of the 
wind. The veil had fallen over my lost home never 
to rise again — never but once — years after. 

Our vessel never reached her destination. She 
was wrecked in the third month of our voyage, and 
all on board, except myself and another convict, were 
lost. We were picked up by an American vessel ; 
and, keeping our secret as to what we were, we were 
landed safely in New York. My companion went 
his way, and I entered the service of a storekeeper, 



MY LOST HOME. 29 

and worked steadily for four years — four long years, 
in which the vision of my lost home was constantly 
before me. Any feeling of resentment that I may 
have felt at the suspicions of my wife, and at her 
seeming indifference to my fate, was now completely 
obliterated by the operation of time and distance, 
and the old love I gave to her as a girl, came back in 
all its tenderness and force. She appeared to me as 
the guardian and protector of my dear fatherless 
child, whom I had left sleeping innocently in her 
little bed on the night when the door of my lost 
home closed upon me. My dreams by night, my 
one thought by day, grew in intensity, until I could 
resist the impulse no longer. Risking the chance 
of discovery, I procured a passage, and landed in 
London in the winter of the fifth year from that in 
which I had left England. 

I took a lodging at a small public-house at Wap- 
ping, near the river ; and I neglected no means to 
escape observation. I waited with a beating, anxious 
heart impatiently for night; and, when it came, I 
went forth well disguised, keeping along the line of 
docks and silent warehouses, until I reached the end 
of the lane in which the old mansion stood. I did 
not dare to make any inquiry to know if Esther and 
the child were still at the old home ; but my know- 
ledge of the character and prospects of my wife, told 
me that, if the firm had allowed her to stay, she would 
have accepted the offer, as her principles and determi- 



30 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

nation would have sustained her under any feeling of 
disgrace. I walked slowly up the old familiar lane, 
until I stood before the gateway. It was near eight 
o'clock, and the gate was closed, but it looked the 
same as it did when I first knew it as a boy ; so did 
the quaint oak carving, and ^the silent court-yard, 
seen through the small grating. There were no 
lights in the front, and I went cautiously round, up 
a side lane, and along a narrow passage that ran 
between the churchyard and the back of the house. 
At that moment the church clock struck eight, and 
the bells chimed the Evening Hymn, slowly and 
musically, as they had done, perhaps, for centuries ; 
slowly and musically, as they had done in the days 
gone by, while I sat at the window with little Mar- 
garet in my arms, nursing her to sleep. A flood of 
memories came across my heart. Forgetful of the 
object that had brought me there I leant against the 
railings and wept. 

The chimes ceased, acd the spell was broken. I 
was recalled to the momentous task that lay before 
me. I approached, with a trembling step, the window 
of what used to be our sitting-room on the ground- 
floor. I saw lights through the crevices of the closed 
shutters. Putting my ear closely against the wall I 
heard the hum of voices. Faint, confused, and in- 
distinct as the sound was, something — perhaps the 
associations of the place — made me feel that I was 
listening to my wife and child. I was startled by the 



MY LOST HOME. 31 

sound of footsteps; and, turning my eyes in the 
direction of the entrance to the passage (it had but 
one entrance), I saw approaching, an old man, who 
had been in the service of the firm, as house porter, 
for fifty years. He was called blind Stephen ; for, 
though not totally blind, his eyes had a stony, glazed 
appearance. He had lived so long in the house that 
he would have died if he had been removed ; and, in 
consideration of his lengthened service, he was re- 
tained, by Mr. Askew's special commands. This 
was before I left, and I presumed, from finding him 
there, that he was still at his old duty ; coming 
round to see, or rather feel, that all was secure before 
retiring for the night. I shrank against the wall 
with the hope of avoiding discovery : not that I feared 
the consequences of being recognized by Stephen — 
for I had many claims upon his kindness and sym- 
pathy — but that I dreaded, although I longed, to 
hear what he might have to tell me. He came 
directly towards me, as if by instinct; for I was 
perfectly, breathlessly, still ; and paused immediately 
opposite to where I was partially hidden, under the 
shadow of the wall. He seemed to feel that some 
one was there, and his glazed eyes were directed full 
upon me, looking now more ghastly than ever, as they 
glistened in the light of the moon, which just then 
had passed from behind a cloud. Unable to restrain 
myself I uttered his name. 

" Good God ! Mr. Randall, is it you ? " he ex- 



32 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

claimed, with a start, recognizing my voice. "We 
thought you were drowned ! " 

" It is, Stephen/ 5 I replied, coming forward. 
" Tell me, for Mercy's sake, are Esther and the child 
well?" 

" They are." 

" Are they here ? " 

" In that room, Mr. Randall," he said, pointing 
to the one at which I had been listening. 

" Thank God ! " 

"They are much changed, Mr. Randall, since 
you — since you went away," he continued, in a 
sorrowful tone. 

"Do they ever speak of me in your hearing, 
Stephen, when you are about the house ? " 

" Never, now, Mr. Randall." 

There was something in the tone of Stephen's 
voice that weighed upon my heart. He always was 
a kind old fellow, with a degree of refinement above 
his class ; but now, his voice was weak, and sad, and 
tremulous ; more so than what he told me seemed to 
demand. I conjured him to tell me all. With con- 
siderable hesitation and emotion, he complied. 

" None of us in the office thought you guilty of 
the forgery, sir, not one ; and the principal clerks 
presented a note of sympathy and condolence to your 
good lady. Mr. Picard became, as he is now, more 
harsh and disagreeable than ever; and, at one time, 
we thought Mrs. Randall would leave the place ; but 



MY LOST HOME. 33 

Mr. Dobell, we fancy, persuaded her to stay. She 
was always, you know, sir, of a very serious turn, 
and she now went more frequently to chapel than 
ever. She took on a great deal, we fancy, at first ; 
but she is a lady, sir, of great spirit and firmness, and 
she concealed her feelings very well, and held herself 
up as proudly as the best of them." 

"And poor little Margaret, did she miss me 
much?" 

" Indeed, sir, she did at first. Poor little dear, I 
often heard her crying after you in the morning ; and, 
for many weeks, not even the fear of Mr. Picard 
could keep her from going down in the daytime to 
the gateway and standing there looking up and down 
the lane, until she was fetched gently back by me. 
God forgive me for the many falsehoods I told her, 
sir, about your coming back ! But I could not bear 
to see her crying about the great lonely house. And 
she always asked after you in such a loving, inno- 
cent, sorrowful way." 

Poor old Stephen's narrative was here stopped 
by tears ; as for me, I sobbed like a child. 

" Many of the gentlemen, sir, would gladly have 
taken her to their own homes ; but your good lady 
would not part with her. I used often to go up to 
her little room at the top of the house and play with^ 
her as I had seen you do, sir, in the middle of the 
day. She was always very glad to see me; and 
sometimes she would take me to the window when 



34 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

the noonday chimes of our old church were playing, 
and pointing up to the sky above the tower, would 
fancy she saw you there. By degrees her inquiries 
after you became less frequent ; and when the intel- 
ligence of the wreck of your ship arrived, and your 
good lady put her into mourning, supposing you dead, 
she had ceased to ask about you." 

" Has she grown much?" 

" Very much, sir. She is a dear, sweet, gentle 
thing : we all respect your good lady, but we love 
little Margaret ; and although I lost my sight en- 
tirely four years ago, and am now stone blind, I 
know her height to a hair, for there is not a night 
that she does not kiss me before she goes to bed, and 
I have had to stoop less for the kiss every week 
all that time." 

" Has young Mr. Picard ever been heard of?" 

a Oh yes, sir. "We believe he was found murdered 
in some low house in a remote part of the town ; but 
Mr. Picard senior hushed the matter up, so that we 
never clearly knew the facts/' 

" I thought he would never have allowed me to 
suffer for him," I returned, " if he had been on this 
side of the grave." 

" No, that he would not," replied Stephen. 

I felt from Stephen's manner that there was yet 
some disclosure which his nerve was scarcely equal 
to make. Painful or not, I again conjured him to 
tell me all. After much entreaty I learoed from him 



MY LOST HOME. 35 

the dreadful truth that my wife had married again 
It was many minutes before I recovered from the 
shock. My lost home stood before me, and I was 
an outcast wanderer on the wide earth. 

" They have been married about a twelvemonth/' 
continued Stephen, {C and although I can only feel 
what kind of a man he is, I don't think they are 
happy." 

' ( Is he kind to the child ? " I inquired, almost 
sternly. 

" I don't think he is positively unkind ; but he 
is very strict. He was a member of the chapel that 
your good lady used to go to, and he tries to mould 
little Margaret after his own heart. I fear they are 
not happy. Your good lady is less reserved before 
me as I am blind, and I feel sometimes that when 
she is reading, she is thinking of you." 

" Stephen," I replied, sadly and firmly, " I have 
only one more request to make of you before I leave 
the country again for ever. Keep my secret, and let 
me for one minute see Esther and the child." 

" I will," returned Stephen, weeping bitterly, 
" that I will ; and may Heaven sustain you in your 
trouble." 

He threw the old wooden shutter back, which 
was not fastened on the inside, and exposed the long, 
deep, narrow recess, closed in at the end with red 
curtains glowing with the fire and light within. 

" I will now go into the room," he said, " and 



36 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

deliver my keys ; and while there, I will contrive to 
hook back the curtain." 

I thanked him with a silent pressure of the hand, 
and he went. Just then the deep church bell struck 
nine, and every stroke sounded like a knell upon my 
beating heart. I watched — oh, how intensely I 
watched ! — grasping the window-sill with my hands. 
At length the curtain was drawn back, and the vision 
of my lost home stood before me. They were en- 
gaged in evening prayer. My child — my dear lost 
child — now grown tall and graceful, was kneeling at 
a chair : her long golden hair falling in clusters over 
her slender, folded hands. Esther was also kneeling 
with her face towards me. It looked more aged and 
careworn than I expected to see it, but it was still 
the old pale, statue-like face that I had cherished in 
my dreams, and that had nestled on my shoulder in 
the days gone by. 

He who now stood in my place as the guardian 
of my lost home was kneeling where I could not see 
his face ; but I heard his voice faintly muttering the 
words of prayer. Did any one in all that supplica- 
ting group think of the poor, wrecked, convict out- 
cast? God alone knows. The curtain closed, and 
shut out my Lost Home from my dimmed sight for 
evermore. 



TOO WEAK FOR THE PLACE. 



The boy was never strong enough for the place. 
His age must have been about fourteen when he went 
there. He was inclined to be spiderish about the 
legs, and his memory was weaker than his body. 

His parent (a mother, his father being, dead) had 
asked him several times what he would like to be ? 
She might also have asked him what he would like 
to do and to suffer? What could he say? They 
were poor, and he could not be apprenticed to any 
trade ; and yet it was necessary that he should go to 
work. He made several inquiries about employment, 
without success, and in an evil moment he saw a bill 
stuck up in the window of a city tavern, " A strong, 
sharp, active lad wanted." He did not quite come 
up to the description, but he thought he would try. 
He was always a willing boy. 

They engaged him upon trial at a few shillings a 
week, much to the delight of himself and his mother. 

He began work on a Monday at seven in the 
morning; his duty being to assist in preparing the 
kitchen for the business of the day. It was a busy 
place, that tavern — a rushing, tumbling, bawling, 
maddening, busy place—between the hours of twelve 
and four. Every man in the City of London seemed 



38 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

to run in there for luncheon, and to have no time 
to eat it in. Digestion, and the nourishment of the 
human body, were seemingly considered to be things 
of very minor importance by the side of office appoint- 
ments, transactions, operations, and the saving of a 
few minutes of time. The marvel is, why they came 
in at all — why they did not hurry along the streets, 
cramming pieces of bread into their mouths by the 
way, and washing them down by drinking from a 
flask constructed like a pocket-book. But no, they 
wanted something, and they came into the tavern to 
get it. When there, their individual tastes were as 
various as the cut of their coats, or the patterns of 
their waistcoats. If they had all been content to 
feed out of a huge bowl, and drink out of a huge mug, 
the kitchen of the tavern — notwithstanding its large 
fire in the heat of summer — would have been more 
like Paradise, instead of its antipodes. But the 
variety of food and drink which they called for, and 
which was supplied to them with electric rapidity, 
was something wonderful : while their combina- 
tions of eatables were remarkable for ingenuity, and 
originality. 

The boy's employment at this period of the day 
was to attend to the sliding shelves which descended 
from the tavern floor to the kitchen, filled with empty 
plates, and which ascended from the kitchen to the 
tavern floor re-filled with the various eatables. He 
had another, and a more onerous duty to perform ; 



TOO WEAK FOR THE PLACE. 39 

his ear was made the responsible repository of the 
crowd of motley orders which raced with fearful 
rapidity down a speaking tube. There was no time 
for though t, no time for repose. The powerful lungs 
of the master of the establishment were incessantly 
in action, giving out the mandates* for endless food 
in a bullying tone, that he. imagined to be absolutely 
necessary to command attention. He was a bully 
by nature, this tavern-keeper. Stout, beetle-browed, 
and perspiring. Paid his way, and did not care for 
brewer or distiller. Why should he care for cooks, 
scullions, and stout, active boys ? 

At twelve o' clock mid-day this stern, well-to-do, 
determined tradesman took up his position ready for 
anything. Orders were shouted down the tube to be 
in readiness. He felt like a general directing an 
army. At the turn of the hour, the avalanche of 
hunger came down upon the devoted building. 
Clerks, merchants, stockbrokers — no matter what 
their relative stations — small balance at bankers, 
large balance, or no balance — met in the temple of 
refreshment as on common ground, for the general 
craving for nourishment had made equals of them 
all. It is a warm day, and the occasion of the open- 
ing of a new Corn Exchange. Woe upon the luck- 
less boy in the kitchen below. The tempest began 
with a rump-steak pudding and French beans. Large 
plate of lamb and new potatoes j small plate and old 
potatoes ; large plate again, and no potatoes — cauli- 



40 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

flower instead. Extra beans for the rump-steak 
pudding. Now, the steam is up, and cooks, scullions, 
and stout, active boy are in fearful agitation, like the 
cranks and wheels of a large engine, working to the 
top of their bent. Stern, perspiring, excited trades- 
man bawls down the pipe, and demands that his 
words shall be repeated, to make sure that the order 
is clearly understood. 

" One sausage ! " 

A feeble echo of sausage comes from the depths 
of the kitchen up the tube. Again the boy repeats 
the word to the man presiding over the gridiron : a 
glowing, dancing being, who, with a long toasting- 
fork, keeps pricking, goading, and turning small 
steaks, lamb chops, mutton chops, kidneys, and 
sausages— about sixty in number, all frizzling to- 
gether over the same fire. An incessant rumble is 
caused by the sliding shelves going up and down. 

"Hoast veal and ham; gooseberry tart; small 
plate of cold beef and horseradish ; a roast fowl ; 
large plate of boiled mutton, no caper sauce ; rhubarb 
tart; extra cauliflower; large plate of roast beef, 
well done ; small plate of roast mutton, underdone, 
greens, and new potatoes; small plate of veal, no 
ham; currant and raspberry tart; two rump-steak 
puddings ; lamb chop and cauliflower ; extra potatoes, 
new ; mutton chop ; large steak and greens ; small 
plate of roast fowl; basin of oxtail; extra greens; 
two sausages; small of boiled mutton and new; 



TOO WEAK FOR THE PLACE. 41 

kidney ; four rhubarb puddings ; now then, that roast 
fowl; small steak instead of oxtail; boiled mutton, 
lean ; extra greens ; summer cabbage instead of cauli- 
flower with that lamb chop." 

One after the other, these orders pour down the 
pipe, coming up executed in half dozens on the 
shelves. Perfect Babel and pantomimic madness 
below — fully equalled by the Babel and pantomimic 
madness above. No one would suppose eating capable 
of developing the latent talent for sleight of hand 
which seems to exist amongst the frequenters of this 
temple of refreshment. No one would suppose that 
much benefit could be derived from a luncheon or 
dinner taken in a crowd such as assembles at the pit 
doors of a theatre, when free admission is given by 
order of Government on a great public holiday. All 
standing up — reaching over each other's heads — eat- 
ing on the corners of counters — tops of casks — 
balancing plates in one hand, while carving with 
the other — hustling and jostling — ten times worse 
than a large rout in a small house in May Fair. 
Shouting of orders, anxious glances at the clock, 
goading of excited, perspiring tradesman, who adds 
fifty per centum to the goading, and shouts it down 
the pipe. The storm increases ; the call for food 
becomes louder: the varieties are not distinctly 
marked. Names of meat and vegetables, fish, flesh, 
and fowl, pastry and salad, are mixed up together in 
hopeless confusion. The machinery is going wrong. 



42 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

Once the shelves come up with nothing on them, 
to be hurled down indignantly by stern proprietor. 
Again they rise to the surface with everything out of 
order — potatoes standing in the midst of raspberry 
tart, and gooseberry pudding put in a butter-boat. 
A barman is ordered to take charge of the position, 
while the bursting proprietor rushes round to the 
kitchen to see what is the matter. Once more the 
shelves go down ; once more they come up, containing 
a scrubbing-brush, and one pickled onion ! The 
storm of indignation from hungry customers is over- 
whelming. Again the stentorian landlord nearly 
splits the pipe with reiterated orders, sent down in a 
whirlwind of rage. A sound of faint, w T eak, imbecile 
singing is heard below. 

The proprietor goes down. He finds the kitchen 
a wreck. The dancing maniac at the gridiron has 
fled with two scullions to enlist in the army. 

u Mon Dieu ! the xevy cook is fast asleep, 
And all that bullock's heart is baking still !" 

The artist of the establishment is lying supinely 
on his back at an open window. The boy — the 
stout, active lad — has given way under the pressure ; 
his mind is a blank ; he sits at his post, but he is an 
idiot ! 

City men are eccentric, and very exacting where 
labour is concerned ; but they are kind, humane, and 
generous, notwithstanding. They felt that they were 
responsible for this sad state of things underground. 



TOO WEAK FOR THE PLACE. 43 

A subscription was raised. The boy wanted repose 
(the cook had already taken it). He was removed to 
a lonely fisherman's hut on the Essex coast, far from 
the sound of everything, except the sailor's song upon 
the river, and the washing of the water in amongst 
the sedges on the bank. His mind sometimes 
wanders, and his tongue babbles of strange and un- 
known dishes ; but he is progressing favourably. 



44 



ALL NIGHT ON THE MONUMENT. 



If a man wishes to become a real unwavering cynic,, 
cultivating the unamiable quality of a thorough con- 
tempt for his species; if he wishes to realize, and 
become a convert to the truth of the common-places 
of the preacher about the utter nothingness of the 
things of this world ; if he wishes to enlarge his views 
of life, and to spring out of his narrow circle of folly, 
ignorance, and prejudice ; if he wishes to take a calm 
and dispassionate review of the paths he has been 
pursuing ; to see how far he has wandered from the 
right track, or whither his blind, unguided, walled-in 
steps now lead him ; if he wishes to divest himself, 
for a few short hours, of the depressing feeling of 
adoration which the gaudy haberdashery of honour 
excites in him when it appears to his dazzled eyes 
surrounding the petted dolls of the earth, let him 
take up his position upon the misty mountain-tops 
which frequently shut in great cities, or, if nature 
fails him, let him labour to the summit of one of 
those lofty monuments — those light-houses of the 
land — which dwellers in crowded places have always 
loved to raise in the centre of their homes. Seen 
from such a place, the prince's chariot and the 
huckster's cart, the glossy citizen and the tattered 



ALL NIGHT ON THE MONUMENT. 45 

beggar, the marble palace and the tottering rookery, 
your dearest friend and your bitterest enemy, are all 
merged in one mass of indistinguishable equality. 
Heard from such a place, the roar, the accumulated 
voice of the great city — lifted up in its joy, its labour, 
its sorrow, its vice, and its suffering — sounds as the 
sharp cry of agony issuing from the mouths of men 
who are chained within the hateful bounds, by 
imaginary wants and artificial desires : yet it fills the 
heart with no more sense of pity than the united 
plaint of low-sighing pain coming from the wretched 
flies on yonder besmeared fly-catcher. It is the curse 
of excessive smallness to be ill-treated and despised. 
Men who would shrink with horror from wounding 
an elephant, will crush ten thousand insects under 
their heels, and whistle while they do it. Those black 
dots that hurry and wriggle through the crowded 
streets that look no wider than the passages of a 
beehive, what are they ? Men with immortal souls • 
centres of happy household ; fathers, brothers, and 
husbands, if you look them in the face ; but, seen 
from the trifling elevation of a few hundred feet, they 
sink into the most miserable beetles that ever crawled 
down a gutter. Drop a paving-stone upon them 
crushing a dozen at a blow, and even with your own 
father amongst the group, would you feel, from the 
evidence of your senses, that you were the perpe- 
trator and witness of a horrid crime ? You would 
probably be as one who sees a great battle afar off— 



46 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

sees a puff of smoke and the closing together of a few 
red lines — and who, while ten thousand men are 
lying dead upon the field, and thirty thousand 
children are weeping for their fathers, sits with the 
calm unruffled serenity of an Egyptian sphinx, the 
vacant placidity of a Nineveh monarch, or the silent 
contempt of the gods upon Mount Olympus. If the 
black dots in the deep distant street were to hustle, 
fight, and destroy each other, like the animalculse in 
a drop of water, you would probably laugh at them, 
as you laugh at the insect battle when revealed to 
you by the powers of the microscope. May all this 
teach the same lesson to you as it does to me ! — a 
lesson of humanity to the weak and small. 

It was in some such spirit as this that,, at four 
o'clock on the afternoon of Thursday, the thirty-first 
day of December, eighteen hundred and fifty-seven, 
I became the guest of the Eight Honourable the Cor- 
poration of the City of London, and ascended their 
noble monument on Fish Street Hill, coming down 
to mingle in the world once more — after a period of 
seventeen hours — at nine o'clock on the morning of 
the first day of January, eighteen hundred and fifty- 
eight. I have nothing to urge in complaint of the 
want of readiness and courtesy displayed by the City 
authorities in acceding to my wishes. With the same 
hospitality which distinguishes the Guildhall and the 
Mansion House, Mr. Bunning, the City Architect, 
exerted himself, at a very short notice, to welcome 



ALL NIGHT ON THE MONUMENT. 47 

me to the bleak column of sixteen hundred and 
seventy- seven. Mr. John Bleaden, the official keeper 
of the Monument, also insisted upon his deputy 
staying up all night. Below there was a fire, in the 
event of my wanting thawing at any period of the 
long watch. The deputy came up once (about nine 
o* clock at night), evidently expecting to find me sunk 
in a dangerous sleep, as people are supposed to sink 
when exposed to cold for any long period in elevated 
positions ; but finding me brisk and lively, and being 
told by me to go and brew half-a-gallon of egg-hot, he 
descended the long winding staircase very cheerfully. 
My object in exposing myself all those hours in 
such an elevated cage on a winter's night, was not 
to gratify any lunatic whim (although I pride my- 
self upon having that slight tinge of insanity which 
gives a spice and flavour to a man), nor was it for 
the purpose of scientific experiment; but simply to 
see the aspects of the night from hour to hour, and, 
under new circumstances,® far away from convivial 
atmospheres (of which I have had enough) and my 
family circle (of which I have not had enough) to 
witness in a peculiar solitude — in the world but not 
of the world — the death of that old, rotten, bankrupt 
swindling year that was just about to pass ; the year 
upon which we all turned our backs with little sorrow 
and regret, and to witness the birth of that other new, 
untried year that we were just about to reach, and 
which, I fear, we turned our faces to with little hope. 



48 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

I am a conscientious man ; and although I know 
that in a great degree I have my public in my hands 
(for few men are likely to test my experiences by a 
similar experiment, and if they were so disposed, no 
two nights are the same throughout the year), still 
I will not abuse the trust confided in me ; but will, 
to the best of my ability, record what I saw and felt 
on the borders of cloud-land without exaggeration. 

The Monument is not the highest building in 
London — as every Londoner knows — but it has the 
advantage of being very central; its outer gallery, 
or cage, extending over the column all round, gives 
you the feeling — not an unpleasant one — of being 
entirely unsupported from below, as if in the car of 
a balloon ; and while it is high enough to impress you 
with a firm belief in your immeasurable superiority 
to your diminutive fellow- worms beneath, it is not so 
lofty that it quite removes you from all sympathy 
with the doing3 and movements of those very con- 
temptible, but very interesting creatures to whom 
you belong. 

Ascending on this winter's afternoon, at four 
o'clock, I find the City — from north to west, and 
from west to south — half encircled by a high, black, 
dense wall, just above which shines the golden cross 
which surmounts Saint Paul's Cathedral. Fog and 
cloud this wall may be ; but what a noble barrier it 
is ! rising high into those purple heavens, in which the 
imagination may see more forms of golden palaces, 



ALL NIGHT ON THE MONUMENT. 49 

and thrones, and floating forms than ever Martin 
dreamed of in his sleep, and which, when his feeble 
pencil endeavoured to put them upon canvas, with all 
their beauty, height, and breadth, and depth, dege- 
nerated into an earthly Vauxhall Gardens sticking in 
the air. Keep all the masterpieces of Turner — or 
any of the great colourists — down between the close 
walls of the City, but do not bring them up here to 
be shamed into insignificance by the glow of Nature. 
Then, the veil of fog and mist which covers half the 
City like a- sea, and under which you hear the murmur 
and feel the throbbing of the teeming life — see it float 
away like the flowing skirts of an archangel's robe, 
revealing churches, bridges, mansions, docks, ship- 
ping, river, streets, and men, and tell me, lover of 
the picturesque, and dweller in the valley of coughs 
and respirators, wouldst thou give up this fog with all 
its ever-changing, glowing, Uembrandt-like effects,for 
all the brilliant, clear blue monotony of the vaunted 
Italian sky, and all the sharply defined outline and 
cleanly insipidity of Italian palaces ? For the love of 
art and nature, say "Never !" like a man. 

The puppet men now hurry to and fro, lighting 
up the puppet shops ; which cast a warm, rich glow 
upon the pavement. A cross of dotted lamps springs 
into light, the four arms of which are the four great 
thoroughfares from the City. Red lines of fire come 
out behind black, solid, sullen masses of building, and 
spires of churches stand out in strong dark relief at 

E 



50 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

the side of busy streets. Up in the house-tops, under 
green-shaded lamps, you may see the puppet clerks 
turning quickly over the clean, white fluttering pages 
of puppet day-books and ledgers ; and from east to 
west, you see the long silent river, glistening here 
and there with patches of reddish light, even through 
the looped steeple of the church of Saint Magnus the 
Martyr. Then, in a white circle of light round the 
city, dart out little neublous clusters of homes, some 
of them high up in the air, mingling in appearance 
with the stars of heaven ; some with one lamp, some 
with two or more ; some yellow and some red ; and 
some looking like bunches of fiery grapes in the con- 
gress of twinkling suburbs. Then the bridges throw 
up their arched lines of lamps, like the illuminated 
garden- walks at Cremorne — like the yellow buttons 
on the page's jacket, or the round brassheaded nails 
in a coffin. 

Meantime the roar of the great city goes steadily 
on — the noise of voices — the rumble of carts — the 
bells on the land and river — the crash and clinking 
of chains falling from heavy cranes into paved yards — 
the distant shriek and whistle of the engines on the 
railway, and the barking of dogs. Then another 
sense is regaled with the smell of warm grains from 
breweries, the roasting of coffee, and the frying of 
numerous herrings. 

The different clocks have, by this time, struck the 
hour of eight — not simultaneously, for the City time- 



ALL. NIGHT ON THE MONUMENT. 51 

measurers are so far behind each other, that the last 
chime of eight has hardly fallen on the ear from the 
last church, when another sprightly clock is ready to 
commence the hour of nine. Each clock, however, 
governs, and is believed in by, its immediate neigh- 
bourhood. The lights are turned out, one by one, 
in the puppet shops. The glowing pavement before 
them becomes black. The last account is balanced, 
or the last item posted in the puppet ledgers. The 
green-shaded lamps die out, and the puppet clerks 
and warehousemen join the great human stream that 
is flowing rapidly along the illuminated roads that 
lead to home. The city becomes blacker and blacker, 
and the twinkling suburbs seem to glisten more 
brightly, as the imagination pictures the faces of 
expectant wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters, 
looking out to welcome husbands, sons, fathers, and 
brothers, in carriage, cab, omnibus, and coach ; or, in 
the person of the more humble or healthy pedestrian. 

Many of those hurrying men fly from the City as 
Cain did from the murdered body of Abel; and it 
would be better that they should smite to the earth, 
the trusting, loving circles of women and children 
that meet them at their doors, than whisper in their 
ears the dark, heavy secrets that are weighing like 
lead upon their hearts. 

Nine ; ten ; eleven by the church clocks, and the 
great city, silent as death — save for the occasional 
rattle of a stray cab or omnibus — with all its treasures, 



52 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

its precious metals and its costly fabrics, is like one 
vast empty workshop left in the charge of a few 
policemen, a few porters, a few boys, and a few old 
women. Its dreamers and its workers are at rest — 
far away from its walls — preparing for that never- 
ceasing, ever -recurring struggle of to-morrow, and 
to-morrow, and to-morrow. 

The moon has now increased in power; and, 
acting on the mist, brings out the surrounding 
churches, one by one. There they stand in the soft 
light, a noble army of temples thickly sprinkled 
amongst the money-changers. Any taste may be 
suited in structural design. There are high churches, 
low churches, flat churches, broad churches, narrow 
churches, square, round, and pointed churches; 
churches with towers like cubical slabs sunk deeply 
in between the roofs of houses ; towers like tooth- 
picks ; like three-pronged forks ; like pepper-castors ; 
like factory chimneys ; like lime-kilns ; like a sailor's 
trousers hung up to dry ; like bottles of fish-sauce ; 
and, like Saint Paul's — a balloon turned topsy-turvy. 
There they stand, like giant, spectral watchmen 
guarding the silent city ; whose beating heart still 
murmurs in its sleep. At the hour of midnight they 
proclaim with iron tongue, the advent of a new year, 
mingling a song of joy with a wail for the departed. 

Shortly after midnight, a volume of smoke bursts 
from the quarter of a great Southwark brewery, dense 
and vast as the clouds on which stood Polyphemus 



ALL NIGHT ON THE MONUMENT. 53 

when derided by Ulysses— stretching away in wreaths 
across Saint Paul's for miles over the Hampstead 
hills, — a contravention of Lord Palmerston's act in 
the dead of night, so sublime and Titanic in its 
grandeur, that I should be paralysed with fear if I 
attempted to inform against it. Far from having' any 
design of the kind, I am profoundly thankful that so 
much pictorial effect — as in the case of the fog — can 
be got out of what is generally treated as a nuisance. 

All night long there has been little or no rest 
upon the river; shouting of names, the passage of 
small craft, the sound of quarrelling, the throwing 
down of heavy metal bodies, and now, at one and 
two o' clock, the iron tug-boats move about, and the 
large vessel at London Bridge Wharf (probably for 
Hull) begins to get up her steam. The land on the 
other side of the water has contributed the shriek 
of the railway whistle at intervals all through the 
night; with the discharge of fog signals, like the 
occasional firing of guns, up to three o'clock, which 
sounds as if some eccentric military gentleman had 
chosen this mode of being awakened for an early 
train. 

About four o'clock I hear the hissing sound of 
brooms in the streets at the base of my watch-tower, 
and I gaze over at the early puppet scavengers as 
they ply their sanitary trade. Looking down upon 
the dark, gray, quiet roofs beneath me, they present a 
strange uneven picture ; like a town that has suddenly 



54 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

been half swallowed up in the earth, or a large slate- 
quarry, with masses of the material lying about, in 
rude plenty, in all directions. By this time Thames 
Street has become a valley of fire; and, at that 
gleaming corner by the Custom House, arise the 
noises of the busy Fishmarket. Towards six o'clock 
the twinkling suburbs — those red fiery stars of earth 
— begin to pale, and a narrow strip of dirty orange- 
coloured sky in the east, heralds the approach of 
daybreak. When the lamps are put out in the 
streets below, about seven o'clock, there is, as yet, 
no daylight to supply their place, and whole thorough- 
fares seem to sink into the earth, bit by bit ; while 
London Bridge appears to be chopped away, arch by 
arch, into the water. Then, a boundless sea of light 
gray mist covers the house-tops like a deluge ; above 
which the thin spires of churches struggle upward, 
and you can almost fancy you see men cling to them 
in their agony to be saved. As the dirty orange 
slip in the heavens above becomes longer, broader, 
and brighter, the sea of mist gradually subsides, 
revealing a forest of pure slate-white smoke, which 
floats and curls from ten thousand stirring houses, 
awakened from their long night trance. "Watch it 
for an hour — this other London nuisance; this 
domestic offering which every morning is sent wind- 
ing up to heaven — and see the forms of unutterable 
beauty that it takes. Look at it, flowing up to, and 
wreathing round, yonder spire of Bow Church like 



ALL NIGHT ON THE MONUMENT. 55 

a band of supplicating angels with long waving 
wings.' 

A small circle of steel- coloured sky above my 
head gradually widens, bringing more light; the 
mist forms a dense black wall round the city — this 
time from south to east, and east to north ; and the 
moon, which started brilliantly from Whitechapel, is 
now, with diminished lustre, hovering over Black- 
friars ; helping to develop the sharp, clear form of 
the upper part of Saint Paul's Cathedral; still 
nothing more than the half of an inverted balloon. 
The dark gray churches and houses spring into 
existence, one by one. The streets come up out of 
the land, and the bridges come up out of the water. 
The bustle of commerce, and the roar of the great 
human ocean — which has never been altogether 
silent — revive. The distant turrets of the Tower, 
and the long line of shipping on the river become 
visible. Clear smoke still flows over the house-tops ; 
softening their outlines, and turning them into a 
forest of frosted trees. 

Above all this is a long black mountain-ridge of 
cloud, tipped with glittering gold ; beyond, float deep 
orange and light yellow ridges bathed in a faint 
purple sea. Through the black ridge struggles a 
full, rich purple sun, the lower half of his disc tinted 
with gray. Gradually, like blood-red wine running 
into a round bottle, the purple overcomes the gray, 
and, at the same time, the black cloud divides the 



56 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

face of the sun into two sections like the visor of a 
harlequin. 

The marked change between night and morning, 
all takes place within thirty minutes — from half-past 
seven to eight o'clock. 

At the latter hour the new year is fairly launched 
The first new day of work commences. New life 
is infused into the now restless but long silent city. 
The veil of night is removed from all the joy, and 
crime, and sorrow that it has covered ; giving place 
to the mists of day in which the churches, streets, 
and houses come and go. The crowds of hurrying 
atoms, who have awakened to a new day and a new 
year, reluctantly leave the distant suburbs for the 
dark thoroughfares that now lead from home, and 
plunge once more into the whirling vortex of work, 
of speculation, and of trade. Unequal and vastly 
different they may be to each other, with all their 
outer and their inner trappings — their wealth and 
their poverty; their meekness and their severity; 
their wisdom and their ignorance; their weakness 
and their strength ; their theories, their dogmatism, 
their palaces, their jewels, their pictures, and their 
cherished books — but, to me, they appear only as a 
set of amusing puppets acting a play, in which the 
sick man cannot walk so fast as the strong man ; the 
wise man is one who does not get run over by some- 
thing larger than himself, and the rich man is one 
who strides across another something in the road, 



ALL NIGHT ON THE MONUMENT. 57 

instead of walking on the pavement. God help them 
all ! They have struggled on for many weary years, 
and will struggle for many more, when I, and the 
structure that supported me so long, shall be num- 
bered with the things that were. 



58 



BRISTLES AND FLINT. 



When the Direct Burygold Railway was opened, 
nothing met the eye but clean, new masses of brick- 
work ; gravelled roads, bright rails, iron girders, lines 
of brilliant carriages, vast stations, solid bridges, 
armies of porters, luxurious waiting-rooms, palatial 
entrance-halls, endless corridors, encaustic pavements, 
and Grecian porticos. What could be grander? 
What could be more imposing? Every director of 
the Burygold Railway was a monarch, and the chair- 
man was the monarch of them all. No troublesome 
accounts and balance sheets were there to damp the 
joy of a splendid inauguration. Contractors had not 
sent in their supplementary charges; lawyers' bills 
for parliamentary conflicts and the purchase of land 
were not even copied out, much less delivered. Great 
George Street was waiting to gather strength for a 
more effective spring ; and Park Street, for the pre- 
sent, was perfectly tranquil. 

Burygold was one of the most important manu- 
facturing towns in the country. Its increase of popu- 
lation, and industrial development, during the last 
ten years, had astonished even its most sanguine in- 
habitants. Old statists stared, and could scarcely 
believe their eyes when they saw the report of 



BRISTLES AND FLINT. 59 

the last census. No equal example of rapid growth 
and apparent prosperity was recorded in the national 
annals. Its consumption of raw material was some- 
thing fabulous ; and its productions were known and 
appreciated in every corner of the globe. No one 
could see it — or rather visit it, and try to see it — 
without being at once impressed with an overwhelm- 
ing sense of its importance. People upon provincial 
and metropolitan platforms got up and descanted 
loudly upon its " mission," and were received with 
the respect due to inspired unveilers of the future. 
No town could number so many factory chimneys ; 
no factory chimneys were so lofty ; no chimneys sent 
forth such volumes of smoke. You might pass near 
to it on a sunny day, and, great as it was, be unaware 
of its existence, because of the self-created cloud 
that enveloped it. From a quiet country road, a few 
miles distant, you might observe a black dense mass 
of vapour in the air above the trees, which any one 
would tell you was Burygold. Walking through its 
streets you would be struck with the hard, dry, 
anxious expression of the men, the absence of women, 
and the want of everything that betokened amuse- 
ment and recreation. It was work; nothing but 
work — one ceaseless round of ever-beginning, never- 
ending work. Masters and men shared the same lot 
together. Men had homes; but they were never in 
them, except for dull, weary, heavy sleep : masters 
had carriages and mansions, but they only used the 



60 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

first to save the precious minutes, and they were 
never at ease or happy at home. What was all this 
unceasing labour for ? 

No one could see any solid product springing 
from this world of labour. Capital was absorbed, 
and the cry was still for more. More capital not 
being forthcoming the moment the cry was uttered, 
the Burygold financiers found fault with the currency 
system. The whole thing was out of order. The 
bank charter was a worn-out measure, useful in its 
time, but not adapted to the wants of a more enter- 
prising age ; it was time to create a new coinage, 
with paper and a few strokes of the pen. Some indi- 
viduals looked calmly on at Burygold during her 
struggle; watched her galvanic industry; accused 
her, in company with every town of her kind in the 
kingdom, of preferring extension to soundness of 
operations, and were stigmatized as croakers, and 
men of the past generation. Her manufacturers 
strove against each other individually for quantity 
without regard to quality of business; and collec- 
tively they strove against every rival town of a similar 
kind. 

Many people wondered there had never been a 
railroad to Burygold before, and they were not at all 
surprised when, in a few years, the opening of a 
second line was announced— the Great Deadlock 
Railway. The estimates upon which this new line 
was based were very favourable : perhaps, a trifle 



BRISTLES AND FLINT. 61 

more favourable than those which had triumphantly 
placed the Direct Burygold Railway at the head of 
its fellow-undertakings in the stock-markets of this 
country. 

The directors of both companies — the Direct 
Burygold and the Great Deadlock — were sound, 
experienced men, with no nonsense or imagination 
about them. They were practical men : men who 
had never had a single dream in their lives : men who 
made their mark in actions ; not in words : men fully 
up to the level of their time, if not a little in advance 
of it : men whose names were a guarantee for the 
plain, common-sense character of what they did : 
kindred men to those who had promoted Thames 
Tunnels, Waterloo Bridges, and structures that had 
created in the country a disappointed and disaffected 
band of dividendless shareholders, but had increased 
the number of the recognized wonders of the world. 

Such were the men into whose experienced hands 
the Great Deadlock and Burygold Railway enter- 
prises had fallen ; and it cannot be wondered at, that 
capital flowed in streams of abundance at their feet. 
Shareholders who were happy in their unbounded 
faith in names, and their belief in exceptional profits, 
offered their support even before it was asked. 

Two of the greatest men at their respective 
boards ; in fact, we may go further, and say two of 
the greatest men in the whole trading country, were 
Mr. Jupiter Bristles and Mr. Mercator Flint. Mr. 



62 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

Bristles was the chairman of the Direct London and 
Burygold Railway, and Mr. Flint was the chairman 
of the Great Deadlock Railway. They were, un- 
doubtedly, the right men in the right places. 

Mr. Jupiter Bristles was a man who was fully 
impressed with the importance of his position. He 
was always at his post ; in fact, as Mrs. Bristles ob- 
served, in her lonely mansion in one of the squares, 
' ' he seemed to live at the railway." He was never 
so happy as when he was in the board-room, or 
puffing along the platform of the London terminus, 
with guards and porters touching their caps to him 
on every side. He was always upon the spot to be 
consulted on any emergency, and was never so 
indignant as when no emergency arose for him to be 
consulted upon. Traffic-managers and secretaries 
were all very well — clever, able, and attentive men; 
but they fully understood that not even the most 
trifling step was to be taken without the sanction of 
Mr. Bristles. Far from being annoyed when sum- 
moned at what many men would consider untimely 
seasons, it was his pride that he knew of no such 
seasons ; and his particular instructions were that, at 
any time ; at any hour of the day or night ; on any 
day in the week ; in the midst of a dinner-party ; on 
Sunday, and even in church, if wanted, he was, with- 
out a moment's hesitation, to be called. 

Mr. Bristles' s reward for all this activity, and at- 
tention to the interests of the shareholders, was the 



BRISTLES AND FLINT. 63 

gratification of his sense of self-importance. He had 
influence; he had authority; and, without these 
things, he would have withered away. He was a 
stout man ; fifty ; and dressed scrupulously after the 
fashion of the late Sir Robert Peel. In his own 
dining-room he was represented in oil at full length, 
with a board-room background; holding a roll of 
paper in one hand, and with the fore-finger of his 
other hand pointing to a spot upon a map lying on 
the table. In his drawing-room he was again re- 
presented in oil, at full length, with a background of 
engines, bales of merchandise, a bridge, and a tunnel ; 
while by his side was a large globe, on which his fore- 
finger was pointing in much the same manner as it 
did on the map. The day, he hoped, was not far dis- 
tant when he should see his statue standing in the 
great hall of the railway. When he took a party of 
friends along the line — a right or privilege of which 
he was very fond of availing himself — he considered 
Watt a great man, and Stephenson not to be des- 
pised ; but he knew of a greater than either of these 
two — Mr. Jupiter Bristles. 

Such attention at all hours, and all seasons, 
" such a mastery of details, and such power of rapid 
generali zation," as his particular disciple and sup- 
porter at the board delighted to say of him, were not 
without' their effect upon his brother directors. With 
the exception of the preponderating influence of the 
great contractors, Messrs. Brimstone, Treacle, and 



64i UNDER BOW BELLS. 

Company, over the affairs of the Direct London 
and Burygold Railway, Mr. Jupiter Bristles reigned 
supreme, and there was every chance of his statue 
being voted by the board. 

Mr. Mercator Flint, the chairman of the Great 
Deadlock Railway, was a thin, severe man, with a 
crane-like neck, always enveloped, night and day, in 
a stiff Brummel tie. He had his weaknesses (he 
wanted to get into Parliament), but he was careful 
enough never to show them ; and, without any com- 
manding power of intellect, he impressed people with 
a notion of inexhaustible ability, because of his ex- 
treme caution and reservation. He had the masterly 
talent of silence. 

Being connected with the Stock Exchange, he 
passed much of his time at the London terminus ; but 
he was far above any vulgar gratification arising from 
the servility of the servants of the company. They 
touched their caps to him or bowed, as the case might 
be ; but he took no notice of such useless marks of 
respect, and passed on. His undoubted application 
and his presumed abilities gave him a large degree of 
influence over his brother directors ; and, with the 
exception of that retained by the great contractors, 
Messrs. Fiery, Furness, and Company, Mr. Mercator 
Flint's power was absolute. 

The Direct Burygold, and the Great Deadlock 
railways could not exist together, running to the 
same highly important town, without active rivalry. 



BRISTLES AND FLINT. 65 

Indeed a silent encounter had been going on for 
some time, the knowledge of which had not yet 
reached the general public; for its injurious results 
had not appeared in the annual accounts. This en- 
counter took the form of what may be termed the 
absorption of villages. 

On each side of any main line of railway, will be 
found a number of small places boasting a church, a 
single street, a post-office, and a population of about 
two hundred feeble villagers. These villages may be 
five miles, or ten miles distant from the line the rail- 
way may take ; but there they will be, as sure as rivers 
or Roman roads. Now, the Direct Bury gold and the 
Great Deadlock lines, both going to Burygold, ran 
nearly parallel, at about twenty miles' distance from 
each other all the way; the villages lying between 
them. Who made the first step towards absorbing 
a village — whether Mr. Jupiter Bristles, aided by 
Messrs. Brimstone, Treacle, and Company, or Mr. 
Mercator Flint, assisted by Messrs. Fiery, Furness, 
and Company — it is impossible to say; but there 
was the fact, that both lines always reached one of 
these favoured outlying spots about the same time. 
The effect of so much costly branch communication 
wa3 to impoverish the main lines, without developing 
the small resources of the hopelessly stagnant places. 

When a village was annexed, the three inhabi- 
tants who went once a-week to London, were much 
obliged to the two eminent chairmen for their kind 



66 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

attention and annexation. Sometimes a single pas- 
senger of not very powerful intellect, was rendered 
so undecided by the equal advantages of the time- 
tables and fares of the two rival railroads, that he 
sank down in a helpless condition, unable to choose 
either. 

Not content with the almost simultaneous ab- 
sorption of humble villages, the antagonistic feeling 
of the two great railway chairmen showed itself in 
no less a struggle than a fight for the sole traffic to 
and from Burygold. Fares were gradually reduced, 
day after day, and manifestos covered the walls of 
their respective railways, signed Jupiter Bristles, and 
Mercator Flint. The public looked on with wonder 
and delight at so much directorial spirit; and the 
time came when the two hundred miles to Burygold 
and back could be travelled over for the absurd price 
of eighteen-pence. Strange people came out of me- 
tropolitan hiding-places — people who had never heard 
of Burygold before — treating themselves, first to 
eighteenpennyworth of the Jupiter Bristles' novelty 
and instruction, and then to eighteenpennyworth 
from Mr. Mercator Flint. In return, uncouth 
strangers from Burygold wandered about the fashion- 
able streets of the metropolis, dressed in an un- 
known garb, and speaking an unknown tongue. En- 
gine-drivers and guards of the eighteenpenny trains 
were nothing more than men, and conducted their 
charges with a trifle less caution than usual, when 



BRISTLES AKE FLINT. 67 

they thought of the absurdity of such minimized 
fares. The result was that, once or twice, they ran 
off the line, or into coal-trucks, and both Mr. Jupiter 
Bristles and Mr. Mercator Flint discovered, to the 
cost of their respective companies, that eighteen- 
penuy passengers knew more about Lord Campbell's 
Compensation Act, and the value of a bruised head, 
or a broken limb, than aristocratic and regular 
travellers. 

How long this gigantic struggle, as Mr. Bristles 
loved to term it, would have lasted, it is impossible 
to say, if it had not been abruptly brought to a close 
by the commercial collapse of the important town of 
Burygold. This produced something like a truce be- 
tween the two great chairmen ; a reasonable tariff of 
fares was again resorted to ; and the warriors rested, 
for the present, upon their laurels and their losses. 

Burygold had over-traded itself. It had been 
a Burygold boast that a retail trader could not 
be found within its precincts : everybody was so ex- 
tremely wholesale that every form of currency was 
too restricted for Burygold's vast operations. Capi- 
tal could not be made fast enough. It was time for 
Burygold to put her shoulder to the wheel, and re- 
model the whole financial system of the country ; for, 
its productions had been shipped to every part of the 
globe, but it had not been paid for them. 

It was a sad thing to see so much energy, 
so much smoke, so many factory chimneys utterly 



68 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

thrown away. The town looked highly practical. 
In fact, what was it, if it was not practical ? It had 
no beauty to recommend it ; it did not look like a 
land of dreams. Mention Bagdad or Constantinople 
at Bury gold, and everybody laughed. They knew 
exactly what those places meant ;— oriental indolence, 
oriental superstition, oriental weakness of mind and 
body, oriental indifference to gas, main-sewers, water- 
companies, and railroads. But Bury gold was the 
type of Anglo-Saxon energy; and its mission was to 
build iron bridges for insolvent States ; to construct 
docks for companies that could not pay for them ; to 
supply foreign armies with swords and fire-arms in 
exchange for drafts upon tottering treasuries; to 
tunnel foreign mountains, and to drain foreign bogs, 
with a very misty prospect of remuneration; and 
even to take its share in the cost and anxiety of con- 
ducting a gigantic war for those oriental dreamers, 
who were too indolent and incapable to conduct it 
themselves. This was the practical mission which 
Burygold had claimed for itself; and, while straining 
undoubted powers to fulfil it to the utmost, it was in 
danger of perishing almost hopelessly in the attempt. 
Its chimneys towered upward as they did before, but 
with no crown of smoky glory round their lofty 
heads. Its broken-down contractors wandered list- 
lessly through the mazes of their silent and motion- 
less machinery, cursing the stillness produced by an 
arbitrary law that limited the issue of paper-money, 



BRISTLES AND FLINT. 69 

by fixing the convertibility of the bank-note. A 
little more time, and a few more banking facilities, 
and Burygold would have been as active as ever. 
Now, her barges were lying still and empty upon her 
inky canals; her waggons were reposing quietly in her 
stables ; her workmen were standing in idle whisper- 
ing groups at the corners of her black and smoky 
streets, and in growling mobs opposite to her work- 
house. Her capitalists were biting their nails over 
melancholy balance-sheets in her dingy counting- 
houses. They had been practical men ; — men who 
had not dreamed dreams, but men who had acted 
them. It was a pity they had failed : but their prin- 
ciple — extension rather than soundness — led to ruin j 
and their time had come. 

Six months — twelve months — passed, and Bury- 
gold, instead of "righting herself," as Mr. Bristles, 
and also Mr. Flint, had confidently predicted it 
would, only seemed to sink more helplessly and ir- 
redeemably into the mire. It became evident that 
something New must be struck out, to give the Great 
Deadlock and the Direct Burygold enterprises a lift 
in the market; — to preserve the chance of Mr. 
Bristles' statue being voted, and the prospect of 
the parliamentary membership of Mr. Flint. This 
something new, after much deliberation, turned out 
to be nothing more than a plan very familiar to both 
Messrs. Brimstone and Treacle, and Messrs. Fiery, 
Furness, and Company, the eminent contractors. It 



70 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

was spontaneously discovered, one morning, by Mr. 
Bristles and Mr. Flint, that of whatever peculiar 
advantages their respective railways could boast (and 
it was not necessary — to quote a parenthesis from the 
new prospectus — to enlarge upon what must be self- 
evident to the meanest capacity), they both languished 
for want of marine attractions. They went through 
an agricultural country, a grazing country, an his- 
torical country, a coal country, and a manufacturing 
country; but they commanded no seaport, no coast 
town, and it was not surprising that their dividends 
languished. A Direct Burygold and Great Deadlock 
Branch to the delightful and salubrious coast town of 
Hookham-in-the-Marsh, was a public and politic de- 
mand that was not to be resisted. 

Hookham-in-the-Marsh was about fifty miles 
across the country from Burygold; and, until dis- 
covered by the railway surveyors, its sands were 
almost strangers to the foot-prints of civilized man. 
A flag- staff, a few huts, two fishing smacks, a boat 
turned upside down, a wide expanse of mud, sand, 
stones, and sea-weed, composed Hookham-in-the- 
Marsh. A little out of the mud and water, about 
two miles inland, was the parent town; sometimes 
called Great Hookham ; sometimes, from the almost 
imperceptible slope upward from the coast, called 
Hookham-on-the-Hill. 

Hookham-on-the-Hill had been a village in the 
time of William the Conqueror, and a village it yet 



BRISTLES AND FLINT. 71 

remained in the middle of the nineteenth century* 
Its few inhabitants were unambitious and easy-going, 
passing much of their time upon a bridge chewing 
straw, and dropping stones into a small river that ran 
down to the sea. Their staple manufacture was a 
celebrated, but indigestible cheese, which caused the 
town to have a faint smell, as if suffering from de- 
fective sewerage; and their only pride was in a hard 
cannon-ball kind of dumpling, which had been made 
at the principal and only hotel — according to a strin- 
gent proviso in the lease — uninterruptedly, every day, 
for a period of two hundred years. There was also 
a small ruin in the neighbourhood ; — the remains of 
Saint Nettlerash's Abbey, looking very like a large 
Gothic dust-bin ; and, up a certain stable-yard was a 
spring, dropping into a stone basin from a rudely 
carved lion' s head in the wall. "Whoever tasted the 
waters of this spring, to the extent of half a pint, 
was immediately confined to his bed with symptoms 
of aggravated cholera, and excited unholy hopes in 
the minds of expectant legatees. 

Such were the chief features of Hookham-on-the- 
Hill; which, added to the large semicircular coast 
of mud, stones, sand, and sea-weed, that distinguished 
the port of Hookham-in-the-Marsh, formed, in the 
opinion of Mr. Bristles and Messrs. Brimstone, 
Treacle, and Company, on the one hand, Mr. Flint 
and Messrs. Fiery, Furness, and Company, on the 
other, a more than usually favourable basis for the 



72 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

extension of railway enterprise. A deputation of 
influential local individuals from Hookham-on-the- 
Hill, waited privately on Mr. Mercator Flint (under 
the advice of Messrs. Fiery, Furness, and Company), 
and as good as told him that his election for that 
ancient town might be considered as secured, on the 
very day that the proposed station was opened in the 
Great Hookham High Street. Messrs. Brimstone, 
Treacle, and Company, went even further in influen- 
cing Mr. Bristles ; for, aided by two faithful disciples 
of that gentleman, they moved and carried at a full 
meeting of the Direct Burygold Board : " That in 
consideration of Mr. Bristles' talent and energy, his 
undeviating attention to business details, and his 
praiseworthy devotion to the best interests of the 
Direct London and Burygold Railway, a sum of one 
thousand pounds be set aside as a testimonial to 
be presented to him in the form of a full-length 
statue in stone, to be erected upon a pedestal in the 
centre of the great entrance-hall at the London ter- 
minus : such stone statue to be executed by the emi- 
nent sculptor, Mr. Atticus Mallett." 

These movements had the desired effect. The 
Great Deadlock Company took a long lease of the 
stable, yard and spring, obtained a highly scientific 
and incomprehensible medical certificate of the bene- 
ficial saline properties of the water, and built a 
Corinthian pump-room. The Direct Burygold turned 
its attention to the antiquarian history of Saint Net- 



BRISTLES AND FLINT. 73 

tlerash's Abbey, and to looking-up several natural 
advantages in the outskirts of Hookham-on- the- Hill. 
Both Mr. Bristles and Mr. Flint, to all outward ap- 
pearance, sank their individual and official animosi- 
ties, and worked together for the proper and speedy 
development of Hookham-in-the Marsh. Mr. Bris- 
tles, at every possible opportunity, threw himself into 
his favourite statuesque attitude, with his finger point- 
ing upon the map, and held forth enthusiastically 
upon the glowing future of the now obscure fishing- 
station. 

" No one," he said, " with any commercial dis- 
cernment, could look at that vast natural bay — semi- 
circular, and only open to favourable winds — and 
hesitate to predict that, when brought by railroad 
within four hours of the metropolis, its inevitable 
destiny would be not only to ruin Smackborough, 
Brigtown, and other watering-places, but to com- 
mand at least fifty per cent, of the shipping business 
of Great Britain." 

Mr. Flint, in his own peculiar manner, and in 
his own proper sphere, worked, like Mr. Bristles, 
for the furtherance of the same object ; but notwith- 
standing the energy and ability of the two great 
chairmen, they were unable to prevail upon any in- 
dependent capitalists to build upon the bleak and 
muddy shore of their hopeful watering-place. In 
the course of time, a certain number of monotonous 
white houses, with green- shaded bow- windows, a 



74 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

bath-house, a railed enclosure, and six floating baths, 
were placed upon the beach of Hcokham-in-the- 
Marsh ; but placed with the capital of the two rail- 
ways. Yet the two extensions were looked upon 
with a large degree of public interest; and, when 
news came that the Great Deadlock would require 
a lofty viaduct, and the Direct Burygold a long tun- 
nel, these things were only regarded as two more 
great engineering difficulties which nature had raised 
for Anglo-Saxon energy and capital to overcome. 
So popular were the Great Hookham viaduct, and 
the Great Hookham tunnel, that pictures of them 
were drawn, engraved, and largely purchased by an 
admiring public. Mr. Jupiter Bristles' statue was 
immediately put in hand, and the parliamentary 
membership of Mr. Mercator Mint began to assume 
the appearance of an accomplished fact. 

Things went on in this way for some months, 
without any material change. Mr. Jupiter Bristles 
called very often at the studio of Mr. Atticus Mallett, 
to watch the progress of his statue, which seemed to 
him very slow — a fact that he accounted for from 
the dreamy character of artists, who were not prac- 
tical men. Mr. Mercator Flint was very busy on 
the Stock Exchange, and patiently awaited the time 
when he should be entitled to write M.P. after his 
name. 

Some profound writer has written, " Alas, for 
the vanity of human wishes I" One morning intelli- 



BRISTLES AND FLINT. 75 

gence came of the downfall of the Great Hookham 
Viaduct; and close upon it, came a report that 
the engineer of the tunnel could not, in Bury gold 
fashion, make both ends meet, and that the Great 
Hookham Tunnel would have to be entirely recon- 
structed. 

There was nothing very remarkable in this : at 
the worst, the result would only be some months' 
delay, as the loss would fall upon the contractors, 
Messrs. Fiery, Furness, and Company, and Messrs. 
Brimstone and Treacle. But, at this period, a large 
and important class of persons — perhaps the most 
important — whom, we have scarcely alluded to, be- 
cause they always persisted in keeping entirely in the 
background : the people who found the money for 
all this Anglo-Saxon energy on the part of directors ; 
the shareholders — the silent, contented, believing, 
suffering shareholders — began to stand forward for a 
personal investigation of the condition of their pro- 
perty ; and it was evident that a long- gathering storm 
was about to break. Great events have received a 
wonderful stimulus, if not their origin, from very 
trifling causes. A French revolution was started by 
a half-crazy woman tattooing a child's drum in the 
streets of old Paris; and a great railway reform 
movement originated with the fall of the Hookham 
Viaduct, and the misdirection of the Hookham 
Tunnel. 

Mr. Mercator Mint anticipated the investiga- 



76 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

tion; operated to his own advantage on the Stock 
Exchange, resigned his chairmanship, and disap- 
peared. Some years afterwards he came forward as 
one of the most energetic of the railway reformers, and 
his services were gladly accepted, upon the well-known 
principle that governs the choice of thief-catchers. 

Mr. Jupiter Bristles, more confident, or less 
clear-headed, stood his ground, and was formally 
expelled from the Board-room throne by a committee 
of investigation. His statue was ruthlessly and un- 
feelingly countermanded when more than half-way 
finished. It was left a mass of ungainly stone, with 
one blank sightless eye; the whole looking like a 
gigantic wen. 

The two railways were carried sulkily and sul- 
lenly through Hookham-on-the-Hill, to Hookham-in- 
the-Marsh, as there appeared to be nothing better left 
to do. This watering-place still exists for those who 
are curious to see it ; but it does not thrive. Some 
people pretend they like its romantic solitude ; but 
their opinion is not to be relied on. It does very 
well for young married couples who wish to spend 
an undisturbed honeymoon ; but, even for these, it 
is not altogether cheerful, as a melancholy memory 
clings to it, beyond the power of the muddy waves 
to wash away — the memory of one visitor-suicide 
and two visitor-idiots. As a port, it is still inacces- 
sible to a Dutch lugger. 

One investigation followed upon another, and it 



BRISTLES AND FLINT. 77 

was found that there were other sores in the body- 
politic of the Direct Burygold, and the Great Dead- 
lock, besides the Hookham-in-the-Marsh extensions ; 
and that other railways had also sores, and chairmen 
like the practical Mr. Jupiter Bristles and Mr. Mer- 
cator Flint. The great and blessed legacy left by 
the Watts and Stephensons of the past had been 
made the dice-box ^f sharpers and knaves, and the 
football of fools and beadles incarnate. Faded wi- 
dows and helpless orphans came with their withered 
shares to the gate, . and were sent empty away ; 
weeping in the present, desponding for the future. 



78 



THE END OE EORDYCE, BROTHERS. 



As long as I can remember, I have always loved the 
City — taking a strange delight in wandering up and 
down its busy streets, elbowing its merchants in 
their favourite gathering-places, and listening to the 
marvellous histories of many of its greatest money- 
makers. I like these men, perhaps, because I am 
not of them. I am of that listless, aimless, dreamy 
nature, which could not make money if it tried. The 
most promising enterprise would wither under my 
touch. ~Few are the guineas in my pocket that I 
can call my own, but I am well content, and no feel- 
ing of envy arises in my mind as I listen to the 
musical clinking of coin that comes from the open 
doors of the rich banking-houses. 

My most frequent haunt is an old nook in the 
heart of the City, which, although now thrown open 
as a public thoroughfare, must have been, in former 
times, the private garden of some wealthy merchant's 
mansion. The entrance is under a low archway, 
built with bricks of the deepest purple red, and over 
the archway, in a white niche, stands a short, weather- 
beaten figure of a man, cut in stone, in a costume of 
a former age. Passing over the well-worn pavement 
through the arch, you find yourself in a small quadran- 



THE END OF FORDYCE, BROTHERS. 79 

gle containing that rarest of all tilings in these mo- 
dern days — a city garden. Small care does it now 
receive, because no one can claim it as his own. The 
ground is black and hard — the yellow gravel having 
long since been trodden out — and the chief vegeta- 
tion which it boasts are two large chestnut-trees, that 
seem to gain in breadth and vigour as the years roll 
on. A few drooping flowers in one corner, show 
that some town-bred hand is near, fond of the children 
of the country, though little versed in their nature 
and their ways. Under the shade of one of the trees 
stands an old wooden seat, chipped in many places, 
and rudely carved with names and dates. Sitting 
on this bench, and looking before you to the other 
side of the quadrangle, the eye rests upon a short 
passage running under wooden arches, like an aisle 
in the old Flemish Exchange of Sir Thomas Gresham. 
On the face of the brickwork dwelling surmounting 
these arches (now turned into offices) is fixed a rain- 
washed sun-dial, and over this is a small weathercock 
turret that at one time contained a bell. 

Any time between twelve o' clock and four I may 
be found seated upon that old bench under the tree. 
Sometimes I bring a book, and read; sometimes 
I sit in listless repose, repeopling the place with 
quaintly-dressed shadows of the old stout-hearted 
merchants of the past. I seldom have more than 
one companion. Under the archway, and along 
the passage, busy men pass to and from their work 



80 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

the whole day long, but they are too much occupied, 
or too anxious, to give a moment's glance at the gar- 
den, or to linger by the way. My only fellow- visi- 
tor is an old clerk, whose years must have numbered 
nearly ninety, but whose memory is clear and strong, 
although his body is bent with age. He is a kind 
of pensioner connected with the place, and is the 
owner of the few faded flowers in the corner of the 
ground, which he tends with his own hands. For 
eighty long, weary years he has lived in these old 
buildings, never having been out of the City further 
than Newington fields. Here he was born, and here, 
when the appointed time shall come, within sound of 
the familiar bells, and the familiar footsteps of the 
money-makers tramping over his head, he will drop 
into a City grave. 

From the day when I ventured to give him some 
advice about the management of a lilac bush, appa- 
rently in a dying state, he came and sat by my side, 
pouring into my willing ear all the stories that he 
knew about the old houses that surrounded us. He 
soon found in me a sympathetic listener, who never 
interrupted or wearied of his narratives — the" stores 
of a memory which extends over more than three- 
fourths of a century of time. 

At one corner of the quadrangle is a part of the 
building with several long, dark, narrow, dusty win- 
dows, closely shut up with heavy oaken shutters, 
scarcely visible through the dirt upon the glass. 



THE END OF EORDYCE, BROTH EES. 81 

None of the panes are broken, like those of a house 
in chancery, but its general gloomy, ruined appear- 
ance would assuredly have given it up as a prey to 
destruction, if it had not been in its present secluded 
position. Its dismal aspect excited my interest, and I 
obtained from my companion his version of its story. 

I give it in his own person, though not exactly 
in his own words. 

About the middle of the last century, two bro- 
thers were in business in these houses as general 
merchants, whose names were James and Robert 
Fordyce. They were quiet, middle-aged, amiable 
gentlemen, tolerably rich, honourable in their deal- 
ings, affable and benevolent to their servants, as I 
found during the few years that I was in their em- 
ployment. Their transactions were large, and their 
correspondents very numerous; but, although they 
must have been constantly receiving information, by 
letter and otherwise, that would have been valuable 
to them in speculations on the stock-market, they 
never, to the best of my knowledge, made use of it. 
for that purpose, but confined their attention strictly 
to their trade. This building was not divided then 
as you see it now. In that corner which is closed 
up were our counting-houses, the private room of the 
two brothers being on the ground -floor. The rest of 
the square was used as warehouses, except the side 
over the arches, and that was set apart as the 
private residence of the partners, who lived there 



82 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

together, one being a bachelor, and the other a 
widower without children. I was quite a young man 
at this time, but I remember everything as dis- 
tinctly as if it was only yesterday that I am speaking 
about, instead of seventy years ago. I have, perhaps, 
a strong reason for my sharpened memory — I con- 
sider myself the innocent cause of the destruction of 
the firm of Fordyce, Brothers, through an accident 
resulting from my carelessness. One afternoon I 
went to the Post-office with a letter directed to a 
firm in Antwerp with whom we had large dealings. 
I dropped it on the way. It contained a bank draft 
for a large amount, and, although every search was 
made for it that afternoon and evening, it was without 
success. The next morning, about eleven o'clock, 
it was brought to our counting-house by a rather 
short young man of singular though pleasing aspect, 
named Michael Armstrong. He had a long inter- 
view with the elder partner, Mr. James Fordyce, in 
the private room, and what transpired we never 
exactly knew; but the result was, that from that 
hour Michael Armstrong took his seat in our office 
as the junior clerk. 

I had many opportunities of observing our new 
companion, and I used them to the best of my abi- 
lity. His appearance was much in his favour, and 
he had a considerable power of making himself 
agreeable when he thought proper to use it. It was 
impossible to judge of his age. He might have been 



THE END OE FORDYCE, BROTHERS. 83 

fifteen — lie might have been thirty. His face, at 
times, looked old and careworn, at others, smiling and 
young, but there was sometimes a vacant calculating, 
insincere expression in his eye that was not pleasant. 
He made no friends in the place — none sought him, 
none did he seek — and I do not think he was liked 
enough by any of the clerks to be made the subject 
of those little pleasantries that are usually indulged 
in at every office. They had probably detected his 
ability and ambition, and they already feared him. 

I thought at one time I was prejudiced against 
him, because I had been the chance instrument of 
bringing him to the place, and because his presence 
constantly reminded me of a gross act of carelessness 
that had brought down upon me the only rebuke I 
ever received from my employers. But I found out 
too well afterwards, that my estimate of his character 
was correct — more correct than that of my fellow- 
clerks, many of whom were superior to me in edu- 
cation and position, though not in discernment. 

My constant occupation — when I was not ac- 
tively employed in the duties of the office — was 
watching Michael Armstrong ; and I soon convinced 
myself, that everything he did was the result of 
deep, quick, keen, and selfish calculation. I felt 
that the bringing back of the letter was not the re- 
sult of any impulse of honesty, but of a conviction 
that it was safer and more profitable to do so, coupled 
with a determination to make the most of his seeming 



84 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

virtue. What the elder Mr. Fordyce gave him, I 
never knew ; but I judge from his liberal character 
that it was something considerable ; and I know that 
when Michael Armstrong took his place in our 
counting-house, he was only doing that which he 
had willed to do from the first moment that he had 
opened the lost letter, and ascertained the firm from 
whom it was sent. There was, at times, something 
fearfully, awfully fascinating in watching the silent, 
steady working of a will like his, and to see it break- 
ing down it its progress every barrier opposed against 
it, whether erected by God or man ; others saw it, 
and watched it, like me, and were equally dazzled 
and paralysed. 

Michael Armstrong affected to be somewhat deaf 
— I said affected, for I have good reason to believe 
that the infirmity was put on to aid him in deve- 
loping his many schemes. During the greater part 
of the day he acted as private secretary of the two 
brothers, sitting in one corner of their large room, 
by that window on the ground-floor to the left, 
which is now closed up, like all the others in that 
portion of the building. 

I have said before that the firm were often in the 
receipt of early and valuable intelligence, which they 
used for the legitimate purposes of their trade, 
but never for speculations in the stock-market. A 
good deal of our business lay in corn and sugar, and 
the information that the brothers got, enabled them 



THE END OF FORDYCE, BROTHERS. 85 

to make large purchases and sales with greater ad- 
vantage. Sometimes special messengers came with 
letters, sometimes pigeon expresses, as was the custom 
in those days. Whatever words dropped from the 
partners' table — (and they dropped with less reserve, 
as there was only a half-deaf secretary in the room) 
— were drunk in by that sharp, calm, smiling, deceit- 
ful face at the window. But, perhaps, his greatest 
opportunity was during the opening of the morning 
letters — many of them valuable, as coming from 
important correspondents abroad. Michael Arm- 
strong's duty was to receive the key of the strong- 
room from the partners, w T hen they came to business 
in the morning, and to prepare the books for the 
clerks in the outer offices. This strong-room was 
just at the back of Mr. James Fordyce's chair, and 
as he opened the most important correspondence, 
reading it to his brother, who rested on the corner 
of the table, there must have been a sharp eye and a 
sharper ear watching through the crevices of the iron 
door behind them. The next duty that fell to 
Michael Armstrong, after the letters were read and 
sorted, was, to take any drafts that might be in 
them to the bankers, and bring back the cash-box, 
which was always deposited there for safety over- 
night. This journey gave him an opportunity of 
acting upon the information that he had gathered, 
and he lost no time in doing so. Of course, we 
never knew exactly what he did, or how he did it ; 



86 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

but we guessed that through some agent, with the 
money that Mr. James Fordyce had given him when 
he brought back the letter, he made purchases and 
sales in the stock-market, with more or less success. 
He never altered in his manner or appearance ; never 
betrayed by word or signs to any of the clerks, his 
losses or his gains ; and never neglected his me- 
chanical duties, although he must have been much 
troubled in mind at times, by the operations he was 
conducting secretly out of doors. 

Although not a favourite with the clerks, he be- 
came a favourite with the partners. There was no 
undue partiality exhibited towards him, for they 
were too scrupulously just for that — but his remark- 
able business aptitude, his care and industry, his 
manners, and probably his supposed infirmity, 
brought immediately before them, every hour in the 
day by his position as private secretary, had a natural 
influence, and met with adequate reward. 

In this way five years passed, quietly enough, to 
all outward appearance ; but Michael Armstrong was 
working actively and desperately beneath the surface, 
and biding his time. 

In those upper rooms to the right, exactly facing 
our counting-houses, lived an old clerk, named Bar- 
nard, with one child, a daughter, named Esther. 
* The place was a refuge provided for an old and faith- 
ful, poor, and nearly worn-out servant of the house ; 
and the salary he received was more like a pension, 



THE END OF FORDYCE, BROTHERS. 87 

for his presence was never required in the office, 
except when he chose to render it. The daughter 
superintended the home of the two brothers, who, as 
I have said before, lived upon the premises in those 
rooms over the arches. 

Esther Barnard, at this time, was not more than 
twenty years of age; rather short in figure; very 
pretty and interesting, with large, dark, thoughtful 
eyes. Her manners were quiet and timid, the 
natural result of a life spent chiefly within these red- 
bricked walls, in attendance upon an infirm father, 
and two old merchants. She went out very seldom, 
except on Sundays and Wednesday evenings, and 
then only to that old city church just beyond the 
gateway, whose bells are ringing even now. In the 
summer-time, after business hours, she used to bring 
her work and sit upon this bench, under this tree ; 
and in winter her favourite place, while her father was 
dozing over the fire in a deep leathern chair, was in 
the dark recesses of that long window, in the corner 
of their sitting-room, overlooking the garden. She 
was very modest and retiring, never appearing more 
than was absolutely necessary during the day ; but 
for all her care, many a busy pen was stopped in the 
office as her small, light form flitted rapidly under 
the arched passage ; and many an old heart sighed 
in remembrance of its bygone youthful days, while 
many a young heart throbbed with something mere 
of hope and love. 



88 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

The one who saw her most was Michael Arm- 
strong. His duty, every night, was to lock up 
the warerooms and counting'houses, rendering the 
keys to old Barnard, who placed them in the private 
apartments of the two brothers. Since the old 
clerk's bodily weakness had increased, this task was 
confided to his daughter, who executed it timidly at 
first, gaining courage, however, by degrees, until, at 
last, she came to consider it a part of the day's 
labour, even pleasant to look forward to. Whether 
Michael Armstrong ever really loved Esther Barnard 
is more than I can say. I have to judge him 
heavily enough in other and greater matters, and I 
am, therefore, loth to suspect him in this. He had 
no faith, no hope, no heart — nothing but brain, 
brain, ceaseless brain; and small love, that I have 
found, ever came from a soul like this. "What he 
thought and meant was always hidden behind the 
same calm, smiling mask — the same thoughtful, 
deceptive, even beautiful face. He used his appear- 
ance as only another instrument to aid him in 
his designs, and he seldom used it in vain. Esther's 
love for Michael Armstrong was soon no secret to 
the whole house, and many, while they envied him, 
sincerely pitied her, though they could scarcely give 
a reason for so doing. The partners, however — espe- 
cially Mr. James Eordyce — looked with favour upon 
the match; but, from some cause, her father, old 
Barnard, felt towards it a strange repugnance. It 



THE END OF FORDYCE, BROTHERS. 89 

may have been that there was some selfish feeling 
at the bottom of his opposition — some natural and 
pardonable disinclination to agree to an union, that 
threatened to deprive him in his sickness and his old 
age of an only daughter who was both his companion 
and his nurse. Be this as it may, he would not fix 
any definite time for the marriage, although, for his 
daughter's sake, he did not prohibit the visits of him 
upon whom her heart was bestowed. Michael Arm- 
strong did not press just then for a more favourable 
determination, and, for this reason, I am led to be- 
lieve that he had obtained his object — an excuse for 
being upon the premises unsuspected after the busi- 
ness hours of the day were over. I never knew 
him to allow his will to be opposed, and I must, 
therefore, conclude, that in this instance he was 
satisfied with the ground that had been gained. 
Esther, too, was happy — happy in her confidence 
and pure affection — happy in the presence of him 
she loved — happy in being powerless to penetrate 
behind the stony, cruel, selfish mask, that in her 
trusting eyes, seemed always lighted up with love 
and truth. 

In this way, the daily life went on for several 
months. Michael Armstrong, by care — unceasing 
care — perseverance, and talent, rose, day by day, in 
the respect and estimation of the partners. Much 
was entrusted to him ; and although he was not visi- 
bly promoted over the heads of his seniors, he was 



90 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

still the confidential clerk ; and the one in whom 
was centred the management of the banking and 
financial transactions of the honse. We presumed — 
for we knew nothing then — that he was still working 
stealthily on the information that he gathered in the 
partners' room ; and which his new position, more 
than ever, gave him opportunities of using. It was 
a busy time for speculation about this period. For- 
tunes were made and lost by stock-gambling in a 
day ; and Michael Armstrong with his active, calcu- 
lating brain, was not the man to allow the tempting 
stream to rush by without plunging into it. 

Our firm had an important branch house at 
Liverpool, through which it conducted its shipping- 
trade with America. Every six months it was the 
custom of one of the partners — either Mr. James or 
Mr. Robert — to go down and pay a visit of inspection 
to this house, a task that usually occupied ten or 
twelve days. Mr. James Forclyce, about this time, 
took his departure one morning for Liverpool, leav- 
ing his brother Eobert in charge of the London 
affairs. I can see them even now, shaking hands, 
outside that old gateway, before Mr. James stepped 
into the family coach in which the brothers always 
posted the journey. Michael Armstrong was gliding 
to and fro with certain required papers — unobtrusive, 
but keen and watchful. As the coach rolled away 
up the narrow street, Mr. James looked out of the 
window just as his brother had turned slowly back 



THE END OF FORDYCE, BROTHERS. 91 

under the archway. It was the last he ever saw of 
him, alive. 

For several days after Mr. James Fordyce' s de- 
parture, everything went on as before. He started 
on a Friday, with a view of breaking the long, tedious 
journey by spending the Sunday with some friends 
in Staffordshire. On the following Wednesday, to- 
wards the close of the day, a pigeon-express arrived 
from Liverpool, bearing a communication in his 
handwriting, which was taken in to Mr. Robert 
Fordyce in the private room. No one in the office 
— except, doubtless, Michael Armstrong — knew for 
many days what that short letter contained ; but we 
knew too well what another short letter conveyed, 
which was placed in melancholy haste and silence the 
next morning under the pigeon' s wing, and started 
back to Liverpool. , This was in Michael Armstrong's 
handwriting. 

Mr. James Fordyce, upon his arrival at Liverpool, 
had found their manager committed to large pur- 
chases in American produce without the know- 
ledge of his principals, in the face of a market that 
had rapidly and extensively fallen. This gentleman's 
anxiety to benefit his employers was greater than his 
prudence; and, while finding that he had made a 
fearful error, he had not the courage to communicate 
it to London, although every hour rendered the 
position more ruinous. Mr. James Fordyce, after a 
short and anxious investigation, sent a dispatch to 



92 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

his brother, for a sum of many thousands of pounds, 
— an amount as great as the house could command 
upon so sudden, an emergency. This money was 
to be forwarded by special messenger, without an 
hour's delay, in a Bank of England draft : nothing 
less would serve to extricate the local branch from its 
pressing difficulty, and save the firm from heavier 
loss. The letter arrived on the Wednesday, after 
the bank had closed, and when nothing could be 
done until the following morning. In the meantime, 
in all probability, Michael Armstrong received in- 
structions to prepare a statement of the available 
resources of the firm. 

That evening, about half-past eight o'clock, when 
Esther Barnard returned from church, she found 
Michael Armstrong waiting for her at the gateway. 
He seemed more thoughtful and absent than usual ; 
and his face, seen by the flickering light of the street 
oil-lamp (it was an October night), had the old, pale, 
anxious expression that I have before alluded to. 
Esther thought he was ill; but in reply to her 
gentle inquiries, as they entered the house together, 
he said he was merely tired with the extra labour he 
had undergone, consequent upon the receipt of the 
intelligence from Mr. James Fordyce, and his natural 
solicitude for the welfare of the firm. 

Mr. Robert Fordyce's habits — as, indeed, the habits 
of both the brothers — were very simple. He walked 
for two hours during the evening, from six o'clock to 



THE END OF EORDYCE, BROTHERS. 93 

eight, and then read until nine,, at which time he took 
a light supper, consisting of a small roll and a glass 
of milk ; which was always brought to him by Esther, 
who left the little tray upon the table by the side of 
his book, and wished him good night until the morn- 
ing. She then returned to Michael Armstrong, on 
the nights he visited her, to sit until the clock of the 
neighbouring church struck ten, at which hour she 
let him out at the gate, and retired to rest. 

On the night in question she had placed the 
same simple supper ready upon her table; and, 
after retiring for a few moments to her room, to 
leave her hat and cloak, she returned, and took the 
tray to Mr. Robert's apartments. She did not 
notice Michael Armstrong particularly before she 
went; but, when she came back, she found him 
standing by the open doorway, looking wildly and 
restlessly into the passage. She again asked him 
anxiously if he was ill, and his answer was as before ; 
adding, that he thought he had heard her father's 
voice, calling her name, but he had been mistaken. 

They sat for some little time together over the 
fire. Michael Armstrong would not take any sup- 
per, although pressed by Esther to do so. His mind 
was occupied with some hidden thought, and he ap- 
peared as if engaged in listening for some expected 
sound. In this way passed about half an hour, when 
Esther thought she heard some distant groans, ac- 
companied by a noise, like that produced by a heavy 



94 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

body falling on the ground. Esther started up ; and 
Michael Armstrong, who had heard the noise too, 
immediately suggested the probable illness of her 
father. Esther waited not for another word, but ran 
to his apartment, to find him sleeping calmly in his 
bed. On her return, a few minutes afterwards, to 
the room she had just left, she found Michael Arm- 
strong entering the doorway with the light. He said 
he had been along the passages to make a search, but 
without finding anything. He appeared more com- 
posed, and advised her to dismiss the matter from her 
mind. They sat together more cheerfully for the 
next half hour, until the ten o'clock bell sounded 
from the neighbouring church, when she went with 
him across the garden to the gate. The customary 
kiss was given at the door^ and the customary laugh 
and good night received from the old private watch- 
man parading the street ; but Esther Barnard, as she 
locked the wicket, and walked across the garden 
again to her own room, felt a heavy-hearted fore- 
boding of some great sorrow that was about to fall 
upon her. Her prayers that night were longer than 
usual, and her eyes were red with weeping before she 
went to sleep. 

Meantime, the lamp in Mr. Robert Fordyce's 
apartment (the second window from the sun-dial) 
burnt dimly through the night, and died out about 
the break of day. Its master had died some hours 
before. 



THE END OF FORDYCE, BROTHERS. 95 

In the morning the porters opened the place at 
the usual hour, and the full tide of business again 
set in. One of the earliest, but not the earliest, to 
arrive was Michael Armstrong. His first inquiry 
was for Mr. Robert Eordyce, who was generally in 
his private room to open the letters, and give out the 
keys. He had not been seen. An hour passed, and 
then the inquiry was extended to the dwelling-house, 
Michael Armstrong saw Esther, and begged her to go 
and knock at Mr. Robert's door. She went, slowly 
and fearfully, knocked, and there was no answer. 
Knocked again with the same result. The alarm 
now spread, that something serious had happened. 
Esther retired tremblingly with her forebodings of 
the night more than half realized, while the clerks 
came up, and, after a brief consultation, broke open 
the door. 

A room with a close and slightly chemical smell ; 
the blinds still down; an oil -lamp that had burnt 
out; a book half open upon the table; a nearly 
empty tumbler that contained milk; a roll un- 
touched; and Mr. Robert Eordyce, lying dead, 
doubled up on the floor near a couch, the damask 
covering of which he had torn and bitten. On the 
table, near the tumbler was a small, screwed-up 
paper, containing some of the poison from which he 
had died ; and near to this was a letter directed 
somewhat tremblingly, in his own handwriting to his 
brother, Mr. James. 



96 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

One of the earliest, but not the earliest, in the 
room was Michael Armstrong, calm, dignified, and 
collected. Though far younger than many others, 
he took the lead naturally and firmly, and no one 
seemed to have nerve or inclination to dispute his 
authority. Esther stood anxiously amongst the crowd 
at the door looking on with her whole soul staring 
through her eyes. 

Michael Armstrong took up the letter upon the 
table. It was unsealed. He opened it, and read in 
a clear, firm voice, the short and painful statement it 
contained. Mr. Robert Fordyce confessed to his 
brother that for some time he had largely appropri- 
ated the funds of the firm to his own use for specula- 
tions that had turned out unsuccessful in the stock- 
market. Unable to refund the money to meet the 
sudden emergency that had fallen upon the house, 
and fearing to see his brother again after perpetrating 
such a wrong, he had resolved to die by poison, ad- 
ministered by his own hand. 

Deep silence, broken by sobs and tears, followed 
the reading of this letter, for the dead merchant was 
loved and respected by all. A short summons, 
written by Michael Armstrong, as I have said before, 
was tied to the pigeon, and sent to Mr. James Fordyce 
at Liverpool. 

For the next few days the business of the house 
was almost at a standstill. The sad event was the 
gossip of the Exchange, and the commercial coffee- 



THE END OF FORDYCE, BROTHERS. 97 

rooms ; and the credit of Fordyce, Brothers, high as 
their character stood in the City, was, of course, ma- 
terially and fatally injured by this suddeu calamity. 

It was late on the Friday night when Mr. James 
Fordyce returned, having started at once upon the 
receipt of the despatch, and posted the whole way. 
He spent an hour in silent and sacred communion 
with his dead brother, and every one read in his tine, 
open, benevolent face how thoroughly the wrong was 
forgiven that had shaken the foundations of the firm 
and sent one of its members to a sudden grave. 

He then devoted himself, night and day to an 
investigation of their financial position, aided in 
everything by Michael Armstrong, who was ever at 
his side. In the course of a few days his determi- 
nation was known. By closing the branch concern at 
Liverpool, contracting the operations, and reducing 
the London house, the capital remaining was suffi- 
cient to discharge all outstanding obligations, leaving 
a small balance upon which to re-construct the firm. 
This was done, and the honour of Fordyce, Brothers 
was preserved. 

Many of our staff, under the new arrangements, 
were dismissed, but the thoughtful care of Mr. Fordyce 
had provided them with other situations in neigh- 
bouring firms. In other respects our business went 
on as before, but with one remarkable exception. 
The confidence hitherto existing between Mr. For- 
dyce and Michael Armstrong was at an end, and 

H 



98 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

although the latter was still retained in his capacity 
as private secretary, he appeared to feel that he was 
no longer honoured and trusted. I believe at this 
time he would gladly have left the place, but some 
secret power and influence seemed to compel him to 
remain. 

He had never made friends of any of his fellow- 
clerks, nor did he seek them now. Old Barnard's 
repugnance to his marriage with Esther at length 
took the form of open personal repugnance ; and 
poor Esther, herself, while her heart was undoubtedly 
unchanged, became sometimes cold and timid in his 
presence : at others loving and repentant, as if strug- 
gling with some great, fearful doubt that she did not 
dare to confide to him. She was less desirous of 
seeking his company ; and the roses on her fair 
young cheeks, that had grown up even within these 
old city walls, now faded away before the hidden 
grief of her heart. God bless her ; her love had 
fallen, indeed, upon stony ground. 

Mr. Fordyee seemed also to be struggling between 
a variety of contending feelings. Whether he had 
set a watch upon Michael Armstrong at this period 
I cannot say; but while he appeared to feel his 
presence irksome, he seemed always anxious to have 
him near. Better would it have been for him if he 
had let him go his ways. 

It was impossible for Michael Armstrong to be 
ignorant of this state of things, and it only served to 



THE END OF EORDYCE, BROTHERS. 99 

make him, if possible, more keen-eyed and watchful. 
What he thought or did was still only known to 
himself, but there was occasional evidence upon the 
surface that seemed to indicate the direction of his 
silent working. 

Our house had never entirely recovered the shock 
given to its credit by the violent death of Mr. Robert 
Fordyce. Rumours of our being in an insolvent 
position were occasionally bandied about the town, 
gaining strength with the maturing of a large de- 
mand; dying away for a time, after it had been 
promptly satisfied. Our bankers, too, began to look 
coldly upon us. 

The rumours gradually took a more consistent 
and connected form ; an unfavourable condition of the 
money market arose ; the strongest houses cannot 
always stand against such adverse influences, and we 
were, at last, compelled to close our transactions. 
We stopped payment. 

Contrary to general expectation, Mr. Fordyce 
declined to call in any professional assistance to pre- 
pare a statement of the affairs of the firm. At a 
preliminary meeting of his creditors, he took his 
ground upon his long and dearly-earned character 
for commercial integrity ; and asked for a fortnight, 
in which to investigate his books and assets. He 
obtained it. 

If any one was disappointed at this, it was 
Michael Armstrong. His will for once was foiled. 



100 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

For reasons best known, at that time, to himself, he 
wished, now that the house was destroyed, to have 
all books and papers removed out of the reach of 
Mr. Fordyce. It was not to be. 

Mr. Fordyce, from the hour of the meeting, 
almost lived in his private office-room. Day after 
day was he seen arranging papers, and making ex- 
tracts from the leather-bound ledgers. Night after 
night his green- shaded office-lamp was lighting him 
through the same heavy, weary task. He had re- 
moved his writing-desk from the back of the room 
to that window on the left of the ground-floor, 
where Michael Armstrong used to sit. He worked 
chiefly alone, and seldom called in the help of his 
secretary, except for some intricate parts of the cash 
accounts. 

In this way the time went quickly on, and Mr. 
Fordyce had arrived within a few days of the com- 
pletion of his labours. 

It was on a Wednesday evening— a winter's 
evening in the latter part of January — about half- 
past seven o'clock, that Mr. Fordyce and Michael 
Armstrong were alone together, after all the clerks 
had gone, at the window in that room, deeply en- 
gaged in a mass of papers. There seemed to be an 
angry discussion between them. Mr. Fordyce was 
pointing firmly to some white paper leaves, which 
shone brightly under the condensed glare of the 
shaded lamp. Both faces were covered with a dark 



BROTHERS. 101 

veil of shadow, arising from the reflected covering 
of the lamp, but Michael Armstrong's keen eye3 
flashed evilly, even through the mist of that dim 
light. The next moment he was behind Mr. For- 
dyce's chair, with his hand firmly twisted in the folds 
of the old merchant's neckcloth. There was a short 
and hopeless struggle. Two arms were thrown wildly 
into the air; a body fell off the chair on to the 
ground; and Mr. James Fordyce had learnt more 
in that instant, than all those piles of paper would 
have taught him, if he had examined them for years. 
He was dead; — dead, too, without any outward marks 
of violence upon his body. 

Nor was this all. 

Esther Barnard was sitting without a light in the 
dark recess of her favourite window ; — sitting spell- 
bound, paralysed, parched and speechless, gazing 
upon the old office window and the green- covered 
lamp, under the shade of which this terrible drama 
had just passed before her eyes. She could make no 
sign. The whole fearful past history of Michael 
Armstrong was made clear to her as in a mirror, 
although the picture was shattered in a moment, as 
soon as formed. She must have sat there the whole 
night through, heedless of the call of her sick father 
in the adjoining room, to nurse whom she had stayed 
away that evening from church. They found her 
in the morning in the same position, with her reason 
partially gone. 



102 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

Michael Armstrong came in the next day, punc- 
tually at the business hour. He appeared even more 
collected than usual, for he believed that all evidence 
against him was now destroyed for ever. A rigid 
investigation was instituted on the part of the cre- 
ditors; and the mind wanderings of poor Esther 
Barnard were of great importance in making out a 
case against him. It may be that her sad affliction 
was ordained to bring about his destruction, for I do 
not believe that if she had retained her reason, she 
would ever have been induced to speak one word 
against him. Her heart might have broken, but her 
tongue would have remained silent. As it was, 
her accusations were gathered together, bit by 
bit — gathered, as I gathered much of this story, 
from her lips in happy intervals, filling up from. 
imagination and personal knowledge all that seemed 
unconnected and obscure. 

The investigation never reached the courts of 
law. Michael Armstrong saw with the old clearness 
of vision the inevitable result of the chain of evi- 
dence—saw it traced up from speculation to forgery, 
from forgery to his poisoning of Mr. Robert Fordyce, 
from the poisoning to his forgery of the letter trans- 
ferring the early crime, and from the letter to the 
destruction of the house and its last surviving repre- 
sentative. To avoid the expected punishment — 
prepared as he always was for every emergency — 
he poisoned himself in that private room, before our 



THE END OF FORDYCE, BROTHERS. 103 

eyes. Whether the capital, of which he had sapped 
the firm, had been productive or not in his hands, 
we never knew. He was never known to acknowledge 
any kindred ; and no one ever acknowledged him. 
He died, and made no sign; silently and sullenly, 
with his face turned to the wall. 

At one time I indulged in the hope that Esther 
Barnard might recover, and I had prepared a home 
for her, even without the selfish desire of being re- 
warded with her poor, broken heart. Her father 
died, and I cherished her as a brother. Her melan- 
choly madness, at times, was relieved with short 
lucid intervals, during which she thanked me so 
touchingly and sweetly for supposed kindnesses, that 
it was more than a reward. It was my pleasure to 
watch for such happy moments, patiently for days, 
and weeks, and months. In one of them she died, 
at last, in these arms, and I buried her in the ground 
of her old church outside the gateway. Our firm 
was never, in any form, restored, though I still cling 
to the old place. I have seen it sink gradually, step 
by step, until it can scarcely sink lower ; but it is 
still near Esther. There is little happiness in grow- 
ing so very old. 

The old clerk told his story truthfully and clearly, 
and if there was any indistinctness of utterance about 
it, it was only towards the close. Much of it may 
have been the phantom of an old man's imagination, 



104 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

feeding on the tradition of a few elosed, dusty stut- 
ters ; but it interested me, because it spoke to me 
of a bygone time, and of persons and tilings among 
which I love to live and move. 



105 



PASSING THE TIME. 



Every man who in the course of his business exis- 
tence has had the misfortune to be compelled to seek 
an interview with Mr. Proviso, the eminent City 
lawyer, can tell a painful story of monotonous hours 
passed in the outer office of the great master of the 
law, awaiting the coveted favour of an interview. 
Mr. Proviso's business appears to lie amongst a class 
of people who are doubtless very influential and 
highly respectable, but who seem either to have no 
proper sense of the value of time, or who hoard up 
their legal grievances — their actions and their de- 
fences — until they assume such gigantic proportions, 
that half a day passed with their professional adviser 
is scarcely sufficient to clear oif the accumulation. 
It may be that in the rank and file of clients who 
hang upon the wisdom and experience of Mr. Pro- 
viso, I hold a position rather below the general level, 
and am, therefore, treated to those broken scraps of 
time which can be spared from the banquet of more 
favoured, because more important, individuals. One 
thing is certain, that go on what day and what hour 
of that day I will, I am met with the eternal answer 
from the eternal clerks : " Will you have the kind- 
ness to take a seat, sir, for Mr. Proviso is engaged V 



106 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

When I first heard these now too familiar sounds, I 
was weak enough to inquire how long the engage- 
ment was likely to last, and was always met with the 
reply, intended to be comforting : That a few minutes 
would certainly be sufficient to finish the business on 
hand. Sitting patiently upon an old office chair, lis- 
tening to the measured ticking of the office clock; 
taking a mental inventory of the faded office furni- 
ture; reading the not very interesting placards re- 
garding the sales by auction of houses, leases, and 
lands, and varying this meagre meal of literature 
with the titles of blue-books, and the calf-bound 
treatises of the law, the precious moments of the 
short business day passed from me one by one, and 
at last I awoke to a sense of the utterly unreliable 
nature of the information given me by Mr. Proviso's 
clerks concerning their master's professional arrange- 
ments. After the first few visits I became reconciled 
to the existing order of things, and sank mechanically 
into my accustomed chair, to await the convenience 
and the pleasure of the great professor of the art of 
making a living out of the quarrels of foolish or 
wicked people. The distant mellowed hum of car- 
riages in the street, the music of new quills gliding 
quickly over folio foolscap, the warmth of the office 
fire, and the general monastic gloom of the place, 
always produced in me a kind of torpor akin to sleep, 
in which the imagination was actively engaged in pro- 
portion as the body was indulged in idleness and rest. 



PASSING THE TIME. 107 

It was on these occasions that I always found 
myself looking at the gaping mouths of the conver- 
sation tubes, which communicated with Mr. Proviso's 
private room, and the apartments above stairs ; and, 
by way of passing the time, allowing my fancy to run 
riot upon all the probable uses and abuses of these 
ingenious gutta percha mechanical contrivances of 
modern times. 

I saw in imagination young Pyramus, the youth- 
ful cashier of Mr. Proviso's establishment, when 
the other clerks were fully employed, whispering his 
tubical tenderness to his Thisbe — the housekeeper's 
fair daughter — up through intervening reception- 
rooms, and dusty receptacles of ancient records of 
folly, spite, and wrong; past the stern, pompous 
lawyer sitting amongst his wordy deeds; past the 
copying- clerks' garret, where old men and boys were 
writing over and over again the same old story of an 
ejectment, until "whereas, and therefore, and inas- 
much, and thereof," burnt into their dizzy brains, 
and nearly drove, them mad ; past all these things, 
until it reached the bower of the listening damsel, 
who sat with her needlework high above the house- 
tops, looking across the river at the pleasant Surrey 
hills. And then came Thisbe's silvery reply so gently 
down the tube; past the copying- clerks ; past the 
dusty records ; past the old lawyer who had left his 
youth in his law books and his bills of costs ; until 
it found its resting place in young Pyramus's ear — 



108 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

young Pyramus, who waited with a smiling face, like 
a child who hears the mermaid's song swelling from 
the hidden purple depths of an ocean shell. Then 
the dull office shone full of light, and the yellow 
parchment became pictured with the forms of fields 
and waving trees, for Pyramus had learned where 
Thisbe would walk in the sunset of a summer's even- 
ing outside the city walls. 

Again, in imagination, the scene changes ; and, 
from the heights of the romantic and the poetical, I 
sink to the depths of the real and the prosaic. This 
time the eye of fancy rests upon old Jolly Bacchus in 
the office, whose face and general appearance give 
sure indication of a systematic indulgence in the dis- 
sipation of drink. I see him wandering into the 
office long after the regulation hour, with his face 
and hands only partially washed, his shirt dirty, and 
his clothes unbrushed, his eyes glazed, and his speech 
thick, and a general sense of offended dignity, min- 
gled with a determination to be steady, regulating 
every attitude of his body, every muscle of his face. 
When he makes his appearance he is received with 
affected cordiality by his fellow-clerks; and the 
smiles and winks that are exchanged at his condition 
are carefully concealed from his jealous observation. 
He takes his seat at his accustomed desk with some 
little difficulty; and leaning on his elbows, he re- 
gards the smiling faces of the clerks immediately op- 
posite him with a pursed-up mouth and heavy eyes. 



PASSING THE TIME. 109 

Such an opportunity for sport, of course, it is not in 
human nature to throw away; and the jocular clerk 
(there is always one in every office) commences the 
fun by a conversation with Jolly Bacchus, calculated 
to inflame the mind of that individual against his 
employer, Mr. Proviso. 

" Mr. P., sir, has been inquiring for you half-a- 
dozen times within the last twenty minutes," remarks 
the jocular clerk, winking at the company. 

" Wellshir," returns Mr. Jolly Bacchus, u and 
whatish — thater to you?" 

" Oh, nothing, sir," replies the jocular clerk, 
"nothing to me; but a great deal to our respected 
governor, Mr. Proviso." 

"That, shir, for Misher Provishe — o," returns 
Jolly Bacchus, with an attempt to snap his fingers, 
which produces no sound. 

" Oh, come," replies the jocular clerk, " while we 
accept our salaries we must attend to our duties." 

" Shir," exclaims Jolly Bacchus, now working 
himself into a state of drunken rage, " No man shall 
dictate me. Who's Misher Provishe — o, Ish like to 
know? I made him what — is — taught him, shir, all's 
law — and I can pull him down, shir — pull'm down." 
"Well, sir," replies the jocular clerk, playing 
upon the weakness of the intoxicated Bacchus, "you'd 
better tell him so up the pipe ; he's in his room ; tell 
him so up the tube, like a man V 9 

It is about twelve o'clock in the day, and Mr. 



110 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

Proviso is closely closeted with a most important 
client, an East Indian Director. Mr. Proviso is stand- 
ing behind his writing-table, with his thumbs stuck 
in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and his fingers 
tattooing upon his chest, looking like a prime minister 
receiving a deputation. The important client, a man 
of severe aspect and unbending exterior, is seated in 
the large easy-chair, which stands near the mouth of 
the speaking-tube against the fire-place. The two 
men are trying to find their way out of the middle of 
a knotty discussion upon an intricate question of law 
and business, when a gurgling sound is heard to issue 
from the mouth of the speaking-tube, followed slowly 
by this address, the original thick pronunciation of 
which is considerably increased by the peculiar channel 
of communication : — 

" Misher Provishe — o, shir, I'm not — going to be 
dictate — to by you. You're a hum'ug and an im- 
pos'er, shir, an' you know it. I've more law in my 

lilPe finger, shir, than — you have in whole body, 

shir. I'm" - 

What further abuse from Jolly Bacchus would 
have come up the tube no one can tell ; for, upon the 
first sound of the familiar voice, Mr. Proviso, keeping 
his eye steadily fixed upon the startled East Indian 
Director, sidled with admirable coolness towards the 
mouth of the unwelcome oracle, and continuing, with 
some little incoherence in his tone, maimer, and 
ideas, to carry on the important business discussion, 



PASSING THE TIME. Ill 

as if nothing had interrupted it, he seized the stopper 
of the pipe, and corked np for ever the intoxicated 
flow of Jolly Bacchus's eloquence. 

Such are some of the phantoms of imagination 
that I conjure up to fill that dreary pit of mental 
vacuity, which deepens and deepens, as I waste the 
precious mid-day hours, waiting wearily for the leisure 
moments of the great Mr. Proviso. 



112 



RAILWAY NIGHTMARES. 



Some men are born to be madmen ; some to be I 
idiots ; and some to be hanged ; bnt I was born to 
be a shareholder. Some men spend their money- 
like noblemen and princes;' some lose it at the 
gaming-table; some on the turf; some hide it in 
gardens, in wells, in brick walls, and die, forgetting 
to reveal their secret ; but my property is securely 
sunk for the benefit of my country in the Direct 
Burygold, and the Great Deadlock Railways. While 
on one hand, I am lowered to the condition of a 
beggar ; on the other, I am elevated to the rank of 
a patriot. What I have done would, in the ancient 
days, have earned me a statue ; but now, under un- 
heroic forms of business, it is silently accepted as a 
matter of course. If I had sunk my property in 
endowing a hospital, I might have secured the im- 
mortality of a tablet, and the gratitude of a com- 
mittee ; but my prodigal generosity has only taken 
the form of an investment. I sign a deed of settle- 
ment, pocket my liability, see my name recorded in 
a ledger of shareholders — and that is all. 

Having no faith in reformers, I have joined no 
Committee of Investigation ; I have subscribed to no 
society for improving our -prospects. I have quietly 



RAILWAY NIGHTMARES. 113 

accepted my position as a melancholy and accom- 
plished fact. I have sold my withered shares for the 
trifle they would fetch j and, having no family or 
kindred depending upon me for support, I have 
taken to opium-eating. 

I am surprised that I never turned my attention 
to this agreeable investment before. Like my former 
ventures, it pays me no dividends, except in dreams ; 
but then those dreams are of the most varied and 
amusing kind. They come to me without effort; 
they cry to me for no food; they make no calls. 
When they leave me, I feel no regret ; for I know 
that a few pence will, at any time, call them back. 
Beggar as I am, I recline in all the state of kings, 
with no painful memories of yesterday ; no care for 
to-day; no thought for to-morrow. Relieved from 
the dull checks and surroundings of active life, my 
fancy runs riot in a shadowy world, where all dis- 
tinctions are reversed ; and those things that were 
once my sorrow and my dread, have now become 
my pleasure and my toys. 

The long, silent panorama of the Direct Bury- 
gold Railway passes before me : the whole line in 
Chancery ; choked and stiffened by the icy, relent- 
less hand of legal death. The Burygold station, 
once so full of life, is now an echoing, deserted 
cavern; its crystal roof is an arch of broken glass; 
its rails are torn away ; its rooms and offices are 
empty, or boarded up ; and its walls are defaced with 

i 



114 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

old ghastly time-bills, the mocking records of its 
former wealth and activity. The long refreshment- 
corridor is dusty and bare; its fixtures are rudely 
torn from the walls, its floor is strewn with remnants 
of placards and broken china; and nothing living 
is now left, except a wild, half-famished cat, rave- 
nously gnawing a bone as smooth as glass. 

Passing out of this ruined station to the open 
line, I find no signs of traffic. Carriages are not to 
be seen, and the rails in places have been torn up 
by the roots. Rank grass has spread across the once 
busy way, and sheep are calmly browsing, with no 
fear of coming danger. Breaking through a narrow 
cutting between two lofty hills, whose passage, once 
open and bare, is now grown over with underwood 
and brambles, I emerge into a broad amphitheatre of 
landscape, saddened with ruins, like the plains of 
ancient Greece. Standing at the extreme verge, 
upon the ragged edge of what was once a smooth, lofty, 
curving viaduct, I gaze down far below into a 
winding stream, whose course is broken and turned 
by the fallen arches which once spanned the broad, 
deep valley. Large iron girders, spreading masses 
of brickwork, and blocks of heavy masonry, lie 
helplessly in the clear, glassy stream. In the dis- 
tance another ragged edge of tall, narrow, broken 
arches, issues from a cleft in the opposite mountain. 
The blue, misty hills close in the scene on every side ; 
and the solemn stillness of undisturbed nature reigns 



RAILWAY NIGHTMARES. 115 

over all. Struggling down the steep sides of this 
chasm, I pick my way, across the ruins, to the di- 
vided limb of the railway on the further side. Here 
I turn for one final look at the silent valley, and 
then pursue my course. 

The first sign of life which I meet on the ruined 
line is a small side-station, once bright, clean, and 
new, but now damp and mouldy. Seeing smoke 
ascend from the short chimney of this hut, I look 
through the window, and find an old woman in dirty 
rags crouching over a wood fire, formed of parts of 
the building, rocking her bent body to and fro, and 
chanting a low wail. Before I can retire from the 
window, a dwarfed boy, whose huge head, with a long 
pale oval face and large watery eyes, forms one half 
of his withered body, rushes to the door of the hut, 
and draws the attention of the woman to my presence 
by uncouth gestures, and a wild, babbling noise. The 
woman rises quickly, and I see from her eyes and 
manner, that her mind has sunk under the pressure 
of some heavy affliction. Something tells me they 
are mother and son, and sufferers by the ruin which 
is before us, and behind us, and around us. A vague 
notion enters their minds that I have either come to 
molest them, or that I am a member of that class 
which has been the cause of all their misfortunes. 
Their actions become gradually more frantic and hos- 
tile ; and their aspect is at once so melancholy and 
so hideous, that I fairly turn away, and run along the 



116 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

line. They do not attempt to follow me ; but their 
voices, which at first were raised in triumph at my 
flight, become by degrees fainter and fainter, until 
at last they are lost in the distance at which I leave 
them behind. 

Passing along the line, and under many broken 
arches, I come to more life, of a much more agree- 
able character. Beneath a lofty iron bridge, which 
spans the once busy Burygold Railway, I find a group 
of healthy country children, playing on a swing formed 
of ropes tied firmly in the open spaces between the 
girders. Other country children look down from the 
roadway on the top of the arch, and drop small peb- 
bles upon the heads of the children beneath ; aiming 
especially at the child in the swing, as the motion of 
the ropes sends him beyond the shelter of the arch. 
Sometimes those above raise a mocking cry of danger 
from a coming train, which is received with shouts of 
merriment below. 

I proceed a little further, when I come upon the 
broken parts of an oid rotten locomotive engine, lying 
half-embedded in a side embankment. The boiler 
has been half-eaten away. Rats have made it their 
home. "While I am gazing at this picture, an old man 
in mean clothing, leaning on a crutch, has joined me 
by climbing up the embankment on the other side. 

" Ah ! " he says, with a deep, heavy sigh, " Wenus 
isn't what she was when you an' me was younger, 
mate." 



RAILWAY NIGHTMARES 117 

" No, indeed/-' I reply, cautiously, not knowing 
what he refers to, and judging him to be another 
maniac victim of the surrounding railway ruin. 

" When I ran away with 'er," he continues, ' ( acos 
they wanted to sell 'er in a sale, more than twenty 
year ago, she was young an* 'andsome. Look at 
'er now !" 

" Exactly," I return, thinking he alludes to some 
romantic elopement. 

" I took 'er hout o' the station at night," he re- 
sumes, " afore the brokers 'ad put 'er in the hinven- 
tory ; got up 'er steam, an' bowled 'er here, when she 
bust her biler, an' sent me flym' into the ditch — a 
cripple for life." 

Close to this spot is the entrance of a long tunnel, 
the mouth of which is covered with a dense cobweb, 
whose threads are thicker than stout twine. In the 
centre of this cobweb are several huge, overgrown 
spiders as large as crabs. 

"Is there no passage through this place?" I ask 
of the old engine-driver. 

" What, the haunted tunnel ? " he answers, with 
horror and astonishment. " No man's dared to go 
through that for twenty year ! " 

Curiosity prompts me to advance nearer the great 
cobweb, and look through its open spaces into the 
dark cavern beyond. Perhaps the words of the old 
engine-driver have acted upon my excited imagina- 
tion; but I think I see the outlines of smoke-coloured 



118 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

human monsters, who coil round each other, and 
seem hungry for prey. There is nothing fierce and 
active about their savagery, but it has that dreamy, 
listless, quiet, bone-crushing appearance of destruc- 
tive power, so fearful to contemplate in bears, and 
certain monsters of the deep. Perhaps I am gazing 
upon the spirits of departed directors. 

Declining to go through this passage of horrors, 
I ascend the sides of the cutting; and leaving the 
aged engine-driver mourning over the shattered re- 
mains of his Venus, I pass along the roads on the 
top of the haunted tunnel, and descend upon the 
line once more, at the other side. 

Here I again come upon life of a more genial 
kind. Squatters have taken possession of many side- 
stations. Some stations that I pass are more neatly 
kept than others, showing the different character of 
the tenants. Some are quite unoccupied; and one 
is in the temporary possession of a band of travelling 
showmen, whose caravans of wild beasts and curiosi- 
ties are placed across the line. Pursuing the same 
route for some hours — always with the same prospect 
on either side — I pass under rotten bridges, under 
lines of dangling clothes hung out to dry, and through 
groups of women and children assembled in the 
centre of the rails, until at last, day dwindles into 
twilight, and twilight gives place to a cold, clear sky, 
and a large moon. I come, after some time, to a 
deep cutting through a lofty wooded hill, the sides of 



RAILWAY NIGHTMARES. 119 

which are rendered more gloomy by dark, overhang- 
ing fir-trees. Winding along this narrow, artificial 
valley for a considerable distance, I arrive at a sharp 
curve round a bend of the hill, and see an exhibition 
almost as strange as any I have yet met with. In 
the centre of the valley, between the rails, there is a 
blazing wood fire, over which is suspended an enor- 
mous gipsy-kettle. Numbers of men in strange, 
stable-looking dresses, are seated on each side of the 
valley; many of them drinking, and nearly all of 
them smoking. In the distance, beyond the fire, are 
several four-horse stage-coaches, fully horsed, har- 
nessed, and appointed; and, round the fire, dancing 
wildly 'with joined hands to the rough music of some 
half-dozen Kent bugles, played by old, half-resusci- 
tated, stage-coach guards, are some dozen aged stage- 
coachmen, dressed in the familiar garb of former 
days. I see the meaning of this unusual festival at a 
glance. It is a midnight picnic from some adjacent 
country town, met to triumph over the fall, and to 
dance over the ruins, of a paralysed railway. While 
I am gazing at the spectacle, a number of fresh 
roysterers, coming up from behind, sweep me into 
the middle of the dancing, drinking, shouting group, 
and I am immediately questioned as to my sudden 
and uninvited appearance. Almost before I have 
considered my reply, the fact of my being a ruined 
shareholder making the melancholy pilgrimage of my 
sunken property, seems to strike the whole company 



120 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

as if by inspiration, and I am welcomed with the 
loudest mocking laughter, and the heaviest slaps on 
the back that the boisterous villagers are capable of 
administering. One dozen of men ask me in sarcastic 
chorus, what has become of my "foine carriges;" 
while another dozen ask me, also in chorus, where 
my " sixty moile a-hour be now?" 

It is the morning of the second day when I reach 
the grand London terminus : now grand no longer, 
but showing its decay even more glaringly than the 
rest of the line. Its interior is vast, naked, and 
deserted, and its exterior has long been given up to 
the mercy of the bill-stickers. Its classical portico 
is a mass of unsightly blistered placards ; its court- 
yard is silent and untrodden, except by the footsteps 
of a few old servants of the company, who yet live 
in the hope of seeing the old busy days revived. 

Turning my back upon the sad remains of the 
Direct Bury gold E ail way, I proceed at once to the 
rival Great Deadlock line, which has now been taken 
under the permanent management of Government. 
Here at least is life, if not activity; and the great 
terminus looks very different to what it did when 
it was simply a public joint-stock undertaking. The 
familiar policemen and guards are all gone, and, in 
their places, are many fat porters in leathern chairs, 
and messengers in rather gaudy liveries. The chief 



RAILWAY NIGHTMARES. 121 

booking office, once all bustle and energy, is now as 
calm and full of dignity as a rich Clapham conven- 
ticle. Its hours are short, and strictly adhered to, 
especially as regards the closing. While its work is 
decreased two-thirds, its clerks are increased one-half, 
and are dressed in a much more elegant and correct 
manner than they were during the days of its joint- 
stock existence. Literature is now more generally 
patronized ; and the leading newspapers and periodi- 
cals are not only taken in, but diligently read during 
three-fourths of the short business hours. 

The forms of application for tickets are much 
more elaborate than the old rude method of simply 
paying your money, obtaining a voucher, stamped in- 
stantaneously, and walking away. Every man who 
wishes to go to Burygold, or any intermediate station, 
must apply for a printed form; such application to 
be countersigned by at least one respectable house- 
keeper. The form has then to be filled up according 
to certain ample printed directions, which occupy 
about a folio page and a-half. The man who wishes 
to go by rail to Burygold, or any intermediate station, 
must state his age ; must say whether he is a Dis- 
senter or a Church of England man; must state 
whether he is a housekeeper or a lodger ; if the first, 
how long he has been one ; if the second, of what de- 
gree; must state whether he has been vaccinated; 
whether he has had the measles ; whether he has any 
tendency to lunacy, or whether his parents have ever 



122 UNDER BOW BELLS 

exhibited that tendency; must say whether he has 
ever been to Bury gold, or to any intermediate station, 
before, and if so, how many times, and upon what 
dates, and upon what business ; must state what is 
his present object in going to Burygold, and how long 
he is likely to stay ; must state the exact weight of 
luggage he intends to take, and what the nature and 
contents of such luggage may be; must state the 
number of his family (if any), and the ages of his wife 
and children respectively ; and must send this return 
in, accompanied by a letter of application, written 
upon folio foolscap with a margin, and addressed 
to the Right Honourable the Duke of Stokers, 
Governor- General of the Great Royal Deadlock 
Railway, Having allowed three clear days, for veri- 
fication and inquiries, the passenger may attend at 

the chief office of the Great Royal Deadlock Rail- 

i 

way, between the hours of one and three, p.m., and 
receive his ticket upon payment of the fare autho- 
rized by Act of Parliament. If there be any in- 
formality in his return, he is sent back by the 
unflinching clerks. He has to go through the same 
form over again, and to wait another three clear 
days, before he again applies for a ticket. 

With much exertion, the Government managers 
of the Great Royal Deadlock Railway are enabled 
to start two trains during their working day, at an 
annual cost to the country of about eight thousand 
pounds per mile. 



RAILWAY NIGHTMARES. 123 

A number of grants and privileges have been 
made to many members of tlie governing class, who 
now hold positions, and reside upon the line. There 
are the Grand Ranger, the Deputy Grand Ranger, 
the Secretary to the Deputy Grand Ranger; the 
Lord Marshal, the Under Marshal; the Lord Ste- 
ward of the Coke and Coal Department, the De- 
puty Lord Steward; the Grease Master, Deputy 
Grease Master, and the Keeper of the Oil Cans. 
These officers have the privilege (besides grants of 
land upon the line) of running special trains for 
themselves and friends, without any formal notice to 
his Grace the Governor- General. This privilege has 
at present been sparingly used, and no particular 
accident has sprung from it, except the smashing of 
a ploughman who was crossing the line, and the 
running, on one occasion, through the end wall of 
the London terminus, into the middle of the public 
road. 

The Civil Service Staff of the Great Royal Dead- 
lock Railway is the pride and glory of the country. 
Compare it now, for efficiency and completeness un- 
der Government superintendence, with what it was in 
the days of the late bankrupt Joint-Stock Company. 
Every man who enters upon even such humble posi- 
tions as stoker, ticket-taker, or porter must be able 
to tell the names of the Kings and Queens of Eng- 
land.? give- a scientific analysis of coal (including the 
chemistry of coke), and of the theory of combustion, 



124 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

and must show some respectable knowledge of conic 
sections, trigonometry, and the use of the theodolite. 
The principal appointments are numerous, varied, and 
complete. There are fourteen Gentlemen Ushers of 
the Great Board Room, and one Assistant Usher ; 
eight Grooms of the General Manager's Office, and 
one Assistant Groom ; fourteen Pages of the Loco- 
motive Department, and one Assistant Page; one 
hundred and fifty Inspectors of Stations, and one 
Assistant Inspector; one hundred and fifty Exa- 
miners of Bridges, and one Assistant Examiner; 
one hundred and fifty Surveyors of Tunnels, and one 
Assistant Surveyor; sixty Regulators of Refreshment 
Rooms, and one Assistant Regulator; ten Heredi- 
tary Grand Judges of Iron Girders, and one Assistant 
Judge ; and fifty-six Gentlemen Lamplighters, with 
one Assistant Gent. The nameless crowd of minor 
offices are as numerous in proportion, and as carefully 
filled, as the posts of trust and honour. The system 
of the Civil Service is carried into the minutest 
corners of the railway, and wherever there is a de- 
partment with thirty or forty clerks, there is always 
to be found one assistant clerk. Every engine is 
manufactured on the premises, by a body of work- 
men, overlooked by another body of surveyors. The 
cost of every locomotive is about double the price 
usually charged hj a regular manufacturing engineer. 
To avoid even the remotest chance of accident by 
explosions from over- work, no engine is kept in use 



RAILWAY NIGHTMARES. 125 

more than three months, and some not even that 
small number of weeks. So careful are the stoker 
and driver of the passengers' lives, that where there 
is the slightest chance of an accident from the ob- 
stinate refusal of a home-made locomotive engine to 
move on, rather than irritate it by a dangerous pres- 
sure of steam, they desert the unruly machine, and 
the passengers walk with perfect safety to their des- 
tination along the tranquil and beautifully regulated 
line. 

Such are some of the railway nightmares that 
haunt me, and will not pass away. 



126 



HOW I FELL AMONG MONSTERS. 



During the time that I was a soap-boiler in Queen- 
hithe, and alderman of my ward in Lower Thames 
Street, Her Most Gracious Majesty paid a state visit 
to the City. I was, of course, by virtue of my 
position in the Corporation, one of the most promi- 
nent of the group whose duty it was to receive Her 
Majesty at the portals of the Guildhall ; and I re- 
ceived the honour of knighthood. The empty badge 
of distinction was thrust upon me without any wish 
expressed or implied on my part. Consequently, 
when I was duly created one of the sacred throng, I 
walked about for several weeks in a "moody, rest- 
less, uncomfortable state of mind. If I had been a 
single man I should most assuredly have declined 
the honour ; but my wife, as I called her then ; my 
lady as I call her now, with an amiable weakness 
(which she shares with a multitude of important 
people), begged that I would on no account miss the 
opportunity; and I, therefore, submitted without 
a murmur. She endeavoured to fortify me in my 
new position by picturing to me the behaviour of 
certain other noble martyrs, who had exhibited 
great fortitude, and patient endurance under a similar 
mniction. Some there were, who went steadily on 



HOW I FELL AMONG MONSTERS. 127 

in their old round of portrait-painting, or statue- 
moulding, and still were knights. Some there were, 
who gave lessons in music, or performed surgical 
operations in back parlours, and still were knights. 
Some there were who were skilful with the builder's 
rule and trowel, or the chemist's retort and blowpipe, 
and still were knights. All this was very cheering, 
as far as it went ; but it did not reconcile me to the 
absurdity of a real knight sitting in a soap-boiler's 
counting-house in Queenhithe. I fancied that the 
very porters in my employment laughed at me when 
I arrived of a morning; and that my chief clerk 
looked with pity upon me, and the honours which I 
wore so uneasily. 

I soon made up my mind to a decided course of 
action, and another week saw my business transferred 
to a nephew and my chief clerk; my comfortable 
middle-class family mansion at Peckham advertised 
for sale, and my domestic circle removed to the 
neighbourhood most adorned by that aristocracy 
of whom we were suddenly called upon to form a 
part. 

Having supplied ourselves with all the solid ne- 
cessaries of our position, my wife (or my lady, I 
mean), began to look round, to see what there was 
of the ornamental that we had omitted ; and the first 
thing that came under this class of requirements was 
a coat of arms. The order was given to a competent 
person ; and, after the usual family inquiries, and a 



128 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

considerable delay, a highly-coloured drawing of our 
heraldic symbols was forwarded for inspection. I 
never had much admiration for, or knowledge of 
heraldry, and my expectations of deriving much sa- 
tisfaction from the investigations and performances 
of the learned artist engaged, was very small indeed. 
I was, however, scarcely prepared for the combi- 
nation of monstrosities which were presented to me. 
There was a shield, which looked like a cauldron; 
on the left side was the drawing of an unwieldy 
animal, meant for an elephant, leaning with one paw 
heavily against the shield, and with the other paw 
directing attention to its face, like a showman exhi- 
biting the great canvas picture outside a booth at a 
fair. On the other side was an animal compounded 
of the turkey, the whale, the flying-dragon, the ban- 
tam cock, and the mermaid, with a sting coming out 
of its jaws, looking like a long tobacco-pipe. These 
were called supporters : the term " supporters " 
pleased me very much as applied to the elephant, 
who threatened every moment to overbalance the 
frail structure, burying the other curious monster in 
the ruins. On the top of the cauldron, called the 
crest, were the head of a Hottentot Venus, and a 
lively boar tripping it gently on the light fantastic 
paw. In the centre of the shield, or cauldron, were 
two fat, consequential birds, name unknown, and 
three small-tooth combs ; for the artist said he found 
out (an excuse no doubt for the enormous charge he 



HOW I FELL AMONG MONSTERS. 129 

made) that our family had been ennobled in the 
dark ages — dark indeed ! However, this last heraldic 
freak, caused me to question the artist about the 
meaning of such highly fanciful, not to say humor- 
ous hieroglyphics, and I obtained a long account of 
how I became entitled to each of the supporters, the 
elephant and the compound animal; the Hottentot 
Venus and the dancing boar ; the two birds and the 
three small-tooth combs. Notwithstanding the ex- 
planation, I had not yet the courage to order the 
engraving of a seal, before I consulted my lady. 

" Well, my dear," that sensible woman observed, 
" it does seem odd that we should get such a peculiar 
coat of arms; but if you look over a Peerage, you 
will find many things quite as strange, and I have no 
doubt the artist is quite right." 

Acting upon the suggestion of my lady, I con- 
sulted a Peerage, and also one or two books upon 
heraldry, and I soon found myself studying a pecu- 
liar alphabet, mainly consisting of animals and 
monsters. There were cockatrices, dragons, mer- 
maids, lions, wiverns, griffins, griffins' heads, beavers, 
otters, effigies of men, crabs, lobsters, crevices, sole- 
fish, salmon, dolphins, eels, flies, bees, parrots, doves, 
pelicans, martlets, cocks, peacocks, ravens, turkeys, 
owls, phoenixes, hawks, falcons, spread eagles, heads, 
wings, feathers, legs, cranes, herons, kingfishers, 
swans, ducks, adders, snails, scorpions, grasshoppers, 
toads, tortoises, emmets, spiders, moles, hares, conies, 

K 



130 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

greyhounds, dogs, foxes, cats, squirrels, hedgehogs, 
wolves, wolves' heads, bears, bears' heads, tigers, 
tigers' heads, lions' heads and paws, unicorns, camels, 
boars and boars' heads, stags' heads and bucks' heads, 
bucks, harts, hinds, stags, goats, goats' heads, bulls, 
whole and in part ; elephants, horses, asses, and 
death's heads and bones. Then there were angels, 
spheres and stars, suns and suns' rays, moons, cres- 
cents, fires and names, sea, fountains, rocks, mullets, 
nebulae, rainbows, stones, trees, leaves, escarbuncles, 
escallop shells, and pickaxes. 

Amongst the monsters more rarely used were 
the nepandis .or ape-hog — half ape, half swine ; the 
homocane — half child, half spaniel; the hamya — a 
compound of a woman, a dragon, a lion, a goat, a 
dog, and a horse ; the dragon-tyger and the dragon- 
wolf; the lion wyvern or flying-serpent; the winged 
satyr-fish ; the cat-fish ; the devil-fish ; the ass- 
bittern; the ram-eagle; the falcon-fish with a 
hound's ear; and the wonderful pig of the ocean. 

The application of these ample and curious mate- 
rials is worthy of the science. The crests present 
every conceivable form of animal and monster in every 
attitude of repose, defiance, meekness, stupidity, pom- 
posity, friskiness, rage, and fear. The supporters are 
sometimes animals and sometimes men, and the for- 
mer are generally more intellectual in appearance 
than the latter. Sometimes it is a striding unicorn 
talking loudly across the cauldron to a frowning lion 



HOW I FELL AMONG MONSTERS. 131 

Occasionally it is a conversation between an indignant 
tiger and a mild-eyed, melancholy pelican. Fre- 
quently the supporters are two sturdy angels, with 
fat, solid wings, and short, thick, earthy legs. Some- 
times it is a pair of indecent giants with clubs, or a 
couple of snarling tigers, or a pair of large cats with 
heads like bank- directors and hind -quarters shaved 
like poodles. Sometimes a brace of respectable mas- 
ter sweeps do duty at the sides, or a couple of frantic 
eagles dancing a wild toe-and-heel dance. Then ani- 
mals of more than doubtful genus point with weak, 
idiotic smiles to the figures on the shield, which are 
quite in harmony with the crests and supporters. 
Moors' heads, ships like sauce-tureens, mallets, bel- 
lows, horseshoes, salmon standing up like raw re- 
cruits, helpless dancing-bears, dignified owls, waltz- 
ing lions, marching blackbirds, pot-bellied doves, 
acrobatic swine, and a mass of inanimate objects, the 
pictorial and symbolical meaning of which it is only 
given to a pursuivant-at-arms to understand. In the 
crests, besides animals, there are the doll-trick, the 
army in Bombastes Furioso, the constant arm stick- 
ing up like the pigeon-leg out of a pie, heads on the 
points of daggers, men on rocking-horses, fools'- 
heads, venerable bearded faces looking over the edge 
of the shield, like Socrates in a warm bath, and legs 
kicking out right and left, as if the owner had fallen 
head-first into the heraldic cauldron. 

Looking at the highly refined aristocracy of the 



132 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

nineteenth century,, with their art treasures, their 
pictures, their music, their statues, their love of har- 
mony and grace in dress and furniture, it is marvel- 
lous to find them struggling to trace themselves back 
to a race of men, who could have been nothing but 
rude, untaught, brutal savages. Still more marvel- 
lous is it to find them clinging to a set of uncouth 
symbols, that were invented to convey ideas to a 
generation of chine-splitting, head-cracking ruffians, 
who could neither read nor write. 

In deference to my lady, I have followed in the 
footsteps of my neighbours. The seal to my letters 
is as large as a raspberry tart. I have had my arms 
painted on the panels of my carriage ; and, when one 
of the family dies, I shall hang up, outside the man- 
sion, a black-bordered escutcheon, as large as a public- 
house sign-board. Sometimes I fancy that I see a 
practical man looking at the unwieldy elephant, the 
compound monster, the head of the Hottentot Venus, 
the lively boar, the consequential birds, and the three 
small-tooth combs, with something like contempt, 
and I feel inclined to rush out and shake him by the 
hand, telling him that I agree with his sentiments 
exactly. 



133 



WANTED, A SECRETARY. 



I think the first effort I made to obtain any im- 
portant post was in a parochial direction : I went in 
for assistant vestry-clerk of the influential parish of 
Saint Spankus Within. In obedience to a very pro- 
mising and inviting advertisement, which appeared 
three times consecutively in the two leading news- 
papers, I sent in my application, carefully worded 
and neatly written, sealed, endorsed, and directed, 
accompanied by numerous and satisfactory testimo- 
nials, to the chairman of the vestry, and awaited im- 
patiently the morning appointed for a personal at- 
tendance. It came at last, and dressed in what I 
considered the most judicious and becoming style, I 
proceeded to the vestry-hall. I was twenty years of 
age, prepossessing in appearance, tolerably well edu- 
cated, a good penman, a better accountant, a skilful 
correspondent, and a person who might have been 
entrusted with the keys of the cellars of the Bank of 
England. All these qualities — and many more — my 
testimonials set forth as only testimonials can, and 
do j and I considered myself extremely well armed 
for the contest. 

When I arrived at the scene of battle, I found 
about forty competitors assembled, of all ages, sizes, 



131 UNDE& BOW BELLS. 

and appearances. Seme were mere lads, far younger 
tlian the age specified in the advertisement (between 
twenty and thirty) ; some were evidently men near 
forty, perhaps, with families at home, anxiously wait- 
ing to know their fate; others were jaunty youths 
who lived with their parents, and who did not care 
much whether their application turned out a success 
or a failure. 

There was one man present whose air of carefully 
prepared respectability, covering his poverty like a 
thin transparent veil, particularly attracted my atten- 
tion. I watched his nervous, careworn, despairing 
countenance, full, even to my inexperienced eye, of a 
history of wasted energies, want of self-reliance, and 
a weak dependence upon friends and expected patrons. 
I met him several times afterwards, under similar 
circumstances, always the same, hopeless, helpless 
creature ; applying for everything and getting nothing, 
a burden upon his friends, and a useless clod upon 
the earth. 

We were all placed in a waiting-room, into wdiich 
the vestry-hall opened; and when the messenger 
passed in and out, we got brief glimpses of the some- 
what noisy and undignified body of parish senators, 
who were to decide our fate. Some of us collected 
in little conversational groups, discussing our different 
prospects, showing each other the rough drafts of the 
applications we had sent in, and indulging generally 
in a good deal of weak, verbal criticism, 



WANTED, A SECRETARY. 135 

Suddenly, our consultations were interrupted by 
the loud voice of a porter from the vestry-hall door, 
calling the name of "Bates." This was the first ap- 
plicant called in — an ordinary-looking lad, who had 
kept aloof from the rest of the company. As soon as 
he had gone in to be examined, a short young man 
who stood next to me, whose name I forget, but 
whom, because of his sharp nose and quick, restless 
eyes, I shall call the Weasel, hastily examined a paper 
that he held in his hand, and then said, reflectively — 

" Oh !— oh ! Master Bates— I smell a rat ! " 

I, of course, asked him what supposed discovery 
had led to this observation. 

" Well," said he, {i look here. Isn't a man named 
Bates the chairman of the vestry? Isn't a man 
named Bates the vestry clerk ? Isn't a man named 
Bates the relieving officer ? And are there not several 
men of the name of Bates upon the vestry ?" 

I was compelled, looking over the parochial list, 
to reply in the affirmative. 

" Yes," he returned, n and j^oung Bates is safe 
for the post, mark my words ! " 

We were called in, one by one, before the vestry : 
about fifty men, chiefly shopkeepers, sitting at a board 
covered with green baize and writing materials. Our 
applications were read, and a few questions put to us, 
having answered which we were suffered to with- 
draw. 

After a few hours consumed in this wav, we had 



136 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

all been examined in our turn, and it was announced 
to us that three candidates had been selected, from 
whom one would be elected to fill the post, at one 
o' clock precisely, on that day fortnight. The names 
were Bates, the "Weasel, and myself. 

" I told you so ! " said the Weasel, " I can see it 
all. I shall come on the day appointed, to see the 
end of the job; but I shan't take any trouble about 
it whatever." 

So spake the Weasel, and if I had had faith in 
his words, I might have saved myself a deal of un- 
necessary, unproductive labour. But I was young, 
fresh, and trusting ; and, perhaps, a trifle suspicious 
that my sharp little friend intended to make herculean 
efforts, for all his assumed indifference. In an evil 
moment I procured a list of the vestrymen — with 
their names and addresses — and went home to arrange 
an energetic and methodical canvas. 

I wrote upwards of three hundred letters ; all after 
a form that I had prepared ; and, when I had finished 
them, I started with a thick pair of boots and a good 
umbrella to take them round ; leaving them where I 
could not see the persons required, and obtaining an 
interview where it was possible. 

I canvassed for ten days in the most active and 
persevering manner. I saw butchers and butchers' 
wives in little boxes at the end of greasy shops, both 
in the calm and soapsuds of an afternoon, and in the 
hurry and bustle of a killing morning, when infuriated 



WANTED, A SECRETARY. 137 

bulls were tearing up the backyard, and heavy sheep 
were running headlong between people's legs. I saw 
grocers in large busy shops, and introduced my busi- 
ness, as well as I could, amidst the grinding clatter 
of steam coffee-mills in full operation. I saw bakers 
on the subject, who came up, unwillingly, in the cold 
out of warm bake-houses, with their shirt-sleeves 
tucked-up, their naked feet in loose slippers, and look- 
ing as white as the Pierrot in a pantomime. I went 
into tallow-chandlers' shops, enduring the combined 
smell of oil, candles, paint, size, and soap, to obtain 
an interview with one of the men in power. I went 
into large upholsterers' warehouses, and after toiling 
up-stairs and down, in garrets and cellars, and along 
rooms filled with furniture that I could scarcely thread 
my way through, found a clerk in authority at last, 
stuck in a small counting-house, amidst a forest of 
bedsteads, who kindly informed me that his master 
was in Paris, and not expected home for six weeks. 

Some shops that I went to were in the charge of 
dirty boys, who, the moment I entered, rang a bell, 
bringing down the proprietor, in the middle of his 
dinner, from an upper story, who did not always receive 
me very politely, and who cursed the official position 
that exposed him to such interruptions at such a 
period of the day. Sometimes it was a public-house 
that required a visit, and the landlord was brought 
out of the cellar in the midst of fining or adulterating 
the beer, to listen to my views uttered across the 



138 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

sponge-cakes on the counter inside the bottle-en- 
trance. Sometimes it was a livery-stable keeper; 
ancL, if he happened not to be in the very neat, clean 
house at the entrance to the yard, I had to seek him 
amongst plunging horses, and whizzing ostlers. 

Then, at private houses, I saw, or tried to see, 
doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and retired gentlemen ; 
some I caught just as they were going out in the 
morning, and took a hurried interview upon the door- 
step ; some I found, at the moment they were coming 
home hungry to dinner, in no mood to be trifled with 
by any man, much less by me. In some instances I 
had long periods of waiting for an interview, in dingy 
parlours, looking at a piano, an ornamental book 
upon a round table, and two awful portraits in oil 
of the master and mistress of the house. Sometimes 
I passed about the same period of time in a luxurious 
dining-room, the brilliant carpet of which, to my 
horror, bore two muddy footprints of my own boots. 
Once I was an unwilling auditor of a little do- 
mestic squabble, which was occurring in a back-par- 
•lour closed in with folding-doors ; and I don't think 
I made the impression upon the master of the house 
that I should have done, if he had been a little 
calmer, and not quite so red in the face. Many of 
my interviews were with old ladies of different ages 
and appearances, who, in their husbands' or brothers' 
a nee, undertook to transact business for them. 
Numbers whom I saw, belonged to that section of 



WANTED, A SECRETARY. 139 

til e vestry men, who seldom or never went near the hall; 
arid others must have been that active, public-spirited 
fifty before whom I went on the day of the examina- 
tion; and who although, perhaps, they received me 
more courteously than the rest, had arranged who 
was to fill the office, weeks and weeks before it was 
even advertised. 

Peeling assured that my exertion had not been 
thrown away, I went with some degree of confidence 
to the vestry-hall on the day of election. Our wait- 
ing-room was dull enough now, for only the Weasel 
and myself were there; for some reason, Master 
Bates did not make his appearance. The "Weasel 
still adhered to his opinion about the successful can- 
didate, and a quarter of an hour proved him to be 
correct. Master Bates was announced as the paro- 
chial favourite. 

I w r as a little damped in my ardour by my ill 
success in this first attempt, but I took courage, and 
did not suffer any advertisements to escape me. I 
had repeated interviews with a great number of very 
curious people, engaged, so I presumed, in the get- 
ting up of public companies. I found that the 
amount of cash deposit required to insure my honesty 
and fidelity varied from five to five hundred pounds. 
In some instances I was invited, not to say required, 
to take an interest in the undertaking, and place 
myself in the desirable position of an equal with the 
chairman and directors. In one case they wanted a 



140 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

thousand shares placed upon the market, a phrase at 
that time totally beyond my comprehension ; in an- 
other, they required two or more passable men, with 
good names and addresses, to be introduced, to com- 
plete the board of directors. 

Sometimes it was a company for supplying opera- 
glasses in any quantity, at twopence per night, with 
the option of purchase at eighteenpence ; sometimes, 
a company for introducing the manly game of skittles 
in Paris, and throughout continental Europe; some- 
times for working a copper- mine in a remote part 
of Cornwall; sometimes for constructing a railway 
(under government guarantee), whether the inhabit- 
ants liked it or not, in the interior of China. Some- 
times it was an inventor, who had got a patent that 
promised golden harvests, and a little knot of men 
rallying round him, with quite as much ingenuity, 
but unfortunately with just as little capital as he; 
coal-mines, iron-works, slate- quarries, plans for class 
education, life, fire, water, and loan-offices, and tra- 
velling panoramic exhibitions, alike wanted a secre- 
tary, who could do something for them beyond the 
power of man, or such a man as I was, to perform ; 
and, of course, my numerous letters and interviews 
ended in nothing. 

Occasionally, coming out of one door as I was 
going in. at another, or walking up a street as I was 
walking down, I thought I caught a passing glimpse 
of the faded respectability and the careworn face of 



WANTED, A SECRETARY. 141 

the man I had particularly noticed at the parish 
contest. 

I next became one of a body of about fifty candi- 
dates who answered the invitation of a committee of 
a public charity about to appoint a second secretary. 

It was called the Society for the Promotion of 

something which I forget now ; but I do not think I 
should be far wrong if I said for the Promotion of the 
comfort of its body of officers. The house was in a 
leading thoroughfare — a substantial mansion, adorned 
with an imposing front of four Ionic columns. There 
was an entrance-hall, with a stout porter in a large 
black leathern chair and a most luxurious livery. 
There was a waiting-room furnished with the thick- 
est of Turkey carpets, the solidest of chairs and 
tables, neat book-cases filled with large richly-bound 
books, and portraits of heavy men in the costume of 
a bygone time. We were shown into this comfort- 
able apartment, supported by charity, by the stout 
charity porter, and we took our places on the chairs 
ranged round the walls, and stared at each other in 
blank silence. Presently the door opened, and the 
gorgeous porter came in with a paper in his hand, 
and read the first name in an impressive manner. It 
was mine. I followed him up a broad stone stair- 
case, richly carpeted, and across a wide landing-place, 
ornamented with more pictures, to the board-room, 
entering which, I found myself in the presence of 
the governors of the place. They were, as far as I 



142 UNDER, BOW BELLS. 

can recollect, without an exception, stout, red-faced, 
fall-blooded men, in white neckcloths and glossy black 
coats. The charity they administered was the pro- 
ceeds of a large amount of public benevolence en- 
grafted upon an old bequest of some man who had 
died in the reign of Henry VIII., and whose pro- 
perty had increased in value from year to year to 
an extent that the bequeather could never have 
dreamed of. 

The room below was comfortable, but the board- 
room was perfectly luxurious. A warm, rich, full, 
purple glow fell from the walls, the curtains, and 
carpets, upon the faces of all the committee. They 
looked as if their charity, as usual, had begun at 
home,, by taking care of every man who was fortunate 
enough to be upon that board. I went through the 
usual examination. The handwriting was mine ; the 
testimonials were mine ; I had never committed for- 
gery j I was a member of the Church of England, the 
right church for the institution. 

I bowed myself out ; and, going down the stairs, 
I saw standing in the hall, my careworn friend of the 
parochial contest, looking several shades more faded 
than ever. I spoke to him kindly, and he asked me 
to walk with him for a few minutes up the street. I 
took him to a neighbouring tavern, where I paid for 
a dinner, of which he seemed in no degree unwilling 
to partake. He told me that, when he arrived at the 
institution, and saw upon what a scale of magnifi- 



143 

cence everything was conducted, his heart failed him, 
and he felt that his appearance was not sufficiently 
respectable to carry weight with the directors, even 
if he had been bold enough to go amongst us in the 
waiting-room to take his turn. Lingering undecided 
in the hall, he got into conversation with an under- 
porter (not the gorgeous man in livery), who told 
him, confidentially, that the meeting about the secre- 
taryship was all humbug, and was merely held to 
give a colourable pretext for electing a young man — 
the nephew of the vice-president — who had been 
filling the office on trial for some months past. The 
porter volunteered this information because he hated 
the man who was going to get in ; and he said fur- 
ther, that the present proceedings were only taken 
to throw dust in the eyes of a few members of the 
board, and to appear to comply with certain standing 
rules of the institution. The experience I had gained 
during the last few years taught me to believe this, 
and I went home to await the result of my apparently 
favourable examination, without the slightest hope 
or expectation of success. The next day I received 
a sealed letter appointing another examination in a 
week. When the time arrived, I went up and found 
the original fifty candidates reduced to ten ; the man 
the porter had spoken of, being (of course) one. We 
were called up separately, as before, and underwent 
an examination in no respect different from the last. 
The next day I received another sealed letter an- 



144 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

pointing a third examination in a week. I went 
again mechanically, and found, this time, two candi- 
dates besides myself: the vice-president's nephew 
being still one of us. Another examination — more 
hurried than the last — took place, and we then went 
away. Of course the vice-president's nephew got 
the place. 

For a few years I gave up secretaryship hunting, 
and married Amelia. I shall not describe Amelia ; 
but merely state that we lived a quiet, happy exist- 
ence, doing positively nothing. One evening over 
the dinner-table Amelia spoke as follows : — 

" Do you know, Edgar, that they've made father 
chairman of that Steam Burial Company ?" 

"I do, Amelia/' I rejoined. 

"Well, don't say anything, but he intends to 
make you the manager." 

"No I " I exclaimed, and the old war-horse again 
sniffed the battle afar off. 

This time I remained perfectly passive. I saw 
advertisements in the papers, headed " A Manager 
Wanted," and referring to the Golgotha Cemetery 
and Steam Burial Company. I was instructed — I 
say instructed — to send in a certain application, and 
I sent it. I have no hesitation in stating this, 
because the company has long since been wound up. 
On the day of examination I went down in my 
father-in-law's brougham (very different from the 
days when I used to look upon a chairman as a 



WANTED, A SECRETARY. 145 

Hindoo does upon Brahma), and I was personally 
introduced to one or two of the safe directors. I 
was ushered into a small side office, where I could 
see the waiting-room through a curtain. There was 
the usual number of applicants, standing and sitting 
— just such a group as I had formed one of, many a 
time. Amongst them was my poor old, shabby, 
faded friend, looking many degrees more faded, and 
careworn, and threadbare than ever. I pitied them 
all, for I had a fellow feeling with them. One by 
one they were examined and went away ; hoping, or 
confident, or desponding, as their natures or their 
necessities prompted. 

The directors of the late Golgotha Company cer- 
tainly deserve praise for one thing — they elected me 
at a single sitting, and spared the sufferings of those 
other weary watchers who watched them, and who 
may be watching others still, for those crumbs of 
bitter patronage that seldom or never fall to the poor 
stranger, however worthy, from the fulness of a rich 
board-room table. 



146 



MY TWO PARTNERS. 



i. 

Why do men become chimney- sweeps, dust-con- 
tractors, sausage-makers, meat-salesmen, and soap- 
manufacturers? Why do men in large orchestras 
play upon kettle-drums, cymbals, trombones, and 
serpents, instead of choosing violins, flutes, and 
clarinets? I cannot make it out. 

ii. 

I awoke one morning, and found myself a man of 
property. A man of property ( There is a bitter 
mockery concealed in those words. My uncle had 
died suddenly, without a will, and I was his heir. 
Heir to what? Three distinct and gigantic nui- 
sances ; — a bone-boiling factory, a skin-drying settle- 
ment, and a patent manure depot. Inscrutable fate ! 
My mother on her death-bed had exhorted me to be 
genteel; she had left me a genteel income; and I 
had lived a genteel life. It was all over now. At 
the early age of twenty-five, with the romantic name 
of Edwin Gazelle, I was sucked into the vortex of 
trade. — And such a trade ! 

in» 
I went] over my new possessions. It was a hard, 



MY TWO PARTNERS. 147 

sad task. I saw in the distance a bleak, bare wharf, 
which they told me was mine ; but I did not venture 
personally to measure its extent. I saw several rot- 
ten-looking barges lying off this wharf, and, in them, 
several men, who seemed to be dancing and chirrup- 
ing in the mud. They cheered me vigorously from 
the depths of their unwholesome craft, and I gave 
them beer. They were happy ; — happier than their 
new master, who was obliged to conceal his conflict- 
ing emotions. 

" Shall I put your name, sir, upon the barge?" 
asked my late uncle's chief clerk, who was now my 
managing man. 

"Not at present, Steevens," I replied, with a 
shudder, "not at present. Oh, certainly not at 
present." 

The next place to inspect was the skin-drying 
settlement; a Robinson Crusoe-like collection of 
huts that were built of twigs and branches. Here 
were hundreds of thin, flat, spectral forms of animals 
stretched upon the ground, and swinging upon strings 
over my head. A child's frock and a few pairs of 
socks were hung in the centre of these phantoms ; 
relieving the animal wilderness with a little humanity. 

"What is all this ?" I asked of Steevens. 

" These are your skins," returned my managing 
man. 

"And the clothes V 

" They belong to the keeper's children." 



148 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

We left the place without examining further, 
although the patent manure depot was at the back of 
these premises. The aspect was not cheering, and 
he smell was indescribable. 

Prom the skin-yard we proceeded to the bone- 
boiling factory ; the chief of my new possessions. I 
had come into my property, and I was compelled, in 
common decency, to go over it ; but there are certain 
things that a man is not equal to, even when interest 
and curiosity prompt him to undertake the task. 
The factory was large, busy, and situated near an 
important main road; and, at the moment I ap- 
proached it, the least endurable part of its manu- 
facturing process was in full operation. 

" Steevens," I said, faintly, " where is the chief 
counting-house ? " 

" In the centre of the factory-yard," replied my 
managing man. 

u Then, Steevens," I returned, holding my scented 
handkerchief to my nose, " as I have an appointment 
now, you shall bring the books and papers to my 
rooms at six o'clock this evening." 

At the time fixed he came, in company with one 
Mr. Nickel, a friend of mine of experienced business 
habits. We employed ourselves till nearly midnight. 
The examination, as far as I could make out, went to 
show that the property, if rather repulsive, was de- 
cidedly lucrative. It was agreed that, to advertise it 
for sale, was worse than useless ; and, appointing my 



MY TWO PARTNERS. 149 

friend as general inspector, to look after my interest, 
I accepted my destiny. From that hour I was a 
bone-boiler. 

IV. 

I had command of wealth, but I was not happy. 
Although I did not alter my style of living, I felt 
that I was no longer the same individual. I had 
bartered my soul for worldly goods, and the cold 
shadow of the eternal factory was always darkening 
my heart. I still moved in the same circles as I had 
moved in before. I was still the same eligible single 
man. I was still five feet five inches in height ; my 
appearance still preserved its pleasing, if not com- 
manding expression ; and yet I was not happy. The 
name of bone-boiler was always hissing in my ears. 
The horrid effluvium, which had always prevented 
me from exploring my own premises, seemed to 
cling to my clothes, and exude from the roots of 
my hair, 

I was now nervous and diffident; for I was 
moving in society under false pretences. Carefully 
sb I had maintained the secret of my connection 
with the repulsive factory, and its very repulsive 
adjuncts,, I could not be certain that others had been 
equally discreet, and, in every sly glance, every 
whisper, and every titter, I seemed to read the dis- 
covery of my imposition. The blow might fall at any 
instant, and I lived in dread. 



150 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

V. 

It was near the close of May, when I received 
my usual invitation for Mrs. Buckram's second annual 
ball. I was supposed to be the same young, idle 
lounger with expectations, living in chambers, as I 
was some months before ; and scores of such invita- 
tions came to me in the course of the year. I 
accepted this one gladly, for I knew that she would 
be there: Emma Sandford, Mrs. Buckram's niece, 
and the fairest and sweetest of her sex. 

The night of the ball came, and with it all that I 
had anticipated, even in my fondest dreams. She 
was fairer and more amiable than ever, and she de- 
voted so much of her time to me in the dance, that 
most of the visitors thought we were really engaged. 
When nearly all the dancers were down in the sup- 
per-room, we found ourselves upon a balcony, looking 
into the garden. My lips had long been struggling 
to disclose my love ; and my honour told me that, 
at the same moment, I ought to state fully and 
unhesitatingly who I was — what I was. The situ- 
ation in which we were unexpectedly placed (was it 
quite unexpectedly ?) gave eloquence to my tongue. 

" Miss Sandford — Emma — yi I said, " I dare not 
speak to you upon a subject that is weighing on my 
heart, until I have made a full and honourable dis- 
closure. I am not — I am not what I seem ! " 

" Good gracious ! " gasped the blushing and trem- 
bling Emma. 



MY TWO PARTNERS. 151 

" Yes," I continued, " at the same moment in 
which I tell you that I love you, I tell you that I am 
— a bone-boiler ! " 

She sank upon a rustic seat, but quickly recovered 
herself. 

" A bone-boiler ? " she muttered in her sweetest 
tones, evidently relieved by finding that I was not, as 
she had seemingly expected, a man of crime — " a 
bone-boiler, Edwin ! and what is that?" 

Beautiful simplicity ! Troublesome question ! 
' { "Well, dearest/' I replied, getting more confident 
now that I had made the revelation, "I scarcely 
know, as I go so seldom to the works ; but they boil 

bones" 

"Works? bones?" she interrupted, evidently 
full of some sudden idea. " Speak, Edwin, tell me, 
where is this establishment — this factory ? you know 
what I mean." 

" My property, Emma ? " 
" Yes." 

" About three miles out of London, on the Down- 
ham Road." 

' ' Near the church ? " 
" Near the church." 
"Then we are lost!" 
"Lost?" 

"Yes. Edwin," she returned, in sorrowful tones, "it 
is within a stone's throw of my father's freehold villa, 
and it is the one nuisance which embitters his life." 



152 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

What reply I might have made to this I can 
scarcely tell, for, at that moment, Mr. Sandford, a 
stately man of severe aspect, entered the balcony. 

" Emma ! " he said, sternly to her, as he frowned 
at me, " I have been searching for you everywhere ; 
wish your aunt good night." 

Emma gave me one tender, sorrowful glance, and 
left the place followed by her father. 

VI. 

The next day was a busy one, at least for me. I 
wrote to my manager at the works to cease operations 
for several days, and he replied that this could not be 
done. He would boil as little as possible, but boil 
he must. My object was to prevent the nuisance 
being very obtrusive at the exact moment of my 
visit to Mr. Sandford. 

I went to the Downham Road, about mid-day, 
and I was shown into Mr. Sandford' s study. There 
was one large French window which opened upon 
an extensive ornamental garden ; and, in the distance, 
just over the glass of a conservatory, I saw the two 
black, smoking chimneys of my bone-boiling works. 
Under any circumstances my errand was an excuse 
for nervousness, and my peculiar adjacent property 
did not add to my calmness. 

In about five minutes, Mr. Sandford entered the 
apartment, very stiff and severe in his manner, as 
he motioned me to a seat. 



MY TWO PARTNERS. 153 

" Sir/' he said, " after the conference between 
you and my daughter, which I interrupted last night, 
I am not altogether unaware of the object of your 
visit. Take a chair." 

This opening was chilling, and calculated to in- 
crease my trepidation. I made no reply. 

" Sir," he continued, in a severe tone, " the first 
question which a parent very naturally puts to a gen- 
tleman in your position is, What are his means for 
supporting a matrimonial establishment ? May I put 
that question to you, Mr. Gaz — , Gaz " 

' ' Mr. Gazelle," I answered. 

" Mr. Gazelle?" he inquired. 

I was about to reply to this very troublesome, but 
fully expected question, when, with fear and horror, 
I observed a dense volume of smoke issuing from 
both my factory chimneys, and I was made painfully 
conscious, at the same moment, of a very disagree- 
able, not to say sickening effluvium, which floated 
towards us over the garden and through the open 
doors. I coughed and moved uneasily in my chair, 
while Mr. Sandford lit several pastiles on the mantel- 
shelf, and closed the garden window with a hasty 
bang. 

" Go on," he said, in an excited manner, " go 
on; nothing but a Chancery injunction will stop this. 
Night or day — it's always the same. My chrysan- 
themums withered with smoke ; my family poisoned 
with effluvium" 



154 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

" It's very annoying/' I said, " but " 

" It's more than annoying, sir/' he interrupted; 
" it's illegal, sir. They are bound down never to 
boil bones when the wind is in the south, and I only 
ask you to look at that weathercock over the conser- 
vatory. Look at it carefully, sir ; you may be useful 
as evidence." 

"That, Mr. Sandford/' I said, with attempted 
firmness, " I am afraid can never be." 

" Sir?" he ejaculated, in astonishment. 

" The law of England, sir," I remarked, M protects 
a man from incriminating himself." 

"You?" said Mr. Sandford, converting his brow 
into a tall note of interrogation. 

" Yes, sir, I am the proprietor of those works," 
I replied, with a nervous gulp, feeling that all was 
over. 

It was now Mr. Sandford's turn to be discomposed \ 
but he soon recovered himself. 

"And you come here, sir," he said, red with 
anger, " to ask my consent to my daughter's union 
with an illegal and a pestilential nuisance !" 

" Mr. Sandford," I began to reply, deprecia- 
tingly 

" Go, sir," he interrupted with irritating, though 
pathetic, dignity ; " go, you have polluted my home. 
You have made the ark of my declining years unbear- 
able ; but you shall not rob me of my child ! " 

" You decline my offer ? " I inquired with con- 



MY TWO PARTNERS. 155 

siderable spirit; for I now felt indignant and 
aroused. 

"Good morning, sir!" lie said, with a majestic 
wave of his hand. " Good morning ! " 

In the passage I came full in the arms of my be- 
loved and anxious Emma, who had evidently been 
listening. 

" Oh, Edwin," she exclaimed, "is papa indeed in- 
exorable — and are we to part thus?" 

I could not trust myself to speak ; but fled from 
the place. 

VII. 

Scarcely knowing what I did, I rushed to the 
works. The men were all on duty, with Steevens, 
the manager, and my friend, the inspector. 

"Boil!" I shouted, in my excitement. "Boil 
like mad ! " 

My two managers looked at each other, and then 
looked at me ; but they made no remark. 

" Pile up," I continued, " mountains high, and 
let no copper in the place be other than a cauldron of 
bubbling stench." 

" You are aware, sir," replied Steevens," " that 
we are already threatened by the inhabitants with 
proceedings for creating a nuisance !" 

"And especially by one Mr. Sandford, "inter- 
rupted Mr. Nickel. 

" Gentlemen !" I exclaimed, becoming more ex- 



156 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

cited on hearing the name of that obdurate parent ; 
(c you are the managers here ; but I am the master. 
Boil, I say, to the utmost verge of your power ! " 

The order was obeyed without further remon- 
strance ; and in half an hour the neighbourhood must 
have been sickening under our repulsive activity. 
What was my design ? I hardly knew. Perhaps to 
storm my enemy Into compliance ? To reach him I 
was compelled to annoy the innocent ; and, while I 
gloated in imagination over his sufferings, I was pain- 
fully conscious that my own Emma must be affected 
by the same poisonous vapour. 

At this thought a momentary weakness impelled 
me to stop the busy nuisance ; but I checked it 
at once, when I remembered the contempt I had 
met with. The smoke rose higher and higher, and 
rolled in majestic volumes of effluvium over my 
enemy's villa. I was amply revenged ; and, as the 
works became unbearable, I began to feel dizzy, and 
turned my steps in the direction of home. 

VIII. 

The excitement had preyed upon my health, and 
I was not able to leave my residence for several days. 
At the end of this time, I went once more into the 
world, and wandered by a mysterious impulse to- 
wards the Downham Eoad. I approached Mr. Sand- 
ford's villa with no definite design. I had not de- 
termined to call ; but I was curious to see the place. 



MY TWO PARTNERS. 157 

A mild flavour of the works still hung over the 
neighbourhood; and I judged, from this, that my 
instructions had not been neglected. When I reached 
the villa, my heart sunk within me ; for I found the 
shutters of every window closed, except those of the 
kitchen. A dreadful thought suggested itself. Could 
I have caused a death in the family ? 

Regardless of everything, I hastily rang the bell ; 
and it was answered by an old charwoman. 

"Is she — is anyone dead?" I asked, breath- 
lessly. 

" Lauk-a-daisy, sir," she replied, " you give me 
quite a turn ! " 

' ' Is anyone dead in this house ? " I repeated. 

' ' No, sir," she replied, in a nervous manner. 

" Why are the shutters closed then ? " 

" Well, sir, I don't know who you may be." 

" Why are they closed ? " 

cc Becos the family couldn't stand them stinkin' 
works, an' they've gone out o' town." 

" Madman!" I muttered to myself; "I have 
driven them into exile." 

I asked the old woman where they had gone ; 
but, of course, she could not tell ; for the address, as 
usual, had been written on a piece of paper which 
she had lost or mislaid. 

" It's some town as begins with a P," she said. 

" There are five hundred such towns ! " I re- 
plied. 



158 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

IX. 

A day of misery and a night of restlessness were 
recompensed by an announcement which I read 
the next morning in the second column of the 
Times : — 

"Edwin G- — z — ie. — The Chain Pier every morning at nine. 
The air on the Downs is bracing, but it has no charms for me, 
Better the smoke of a hundred b — e b — ng factories if thou wert 
only near. — Emma S." 

I read with eager and dazzled eyes, and I could 
not doubt that this paragraph was meant for me. 
The pointed mention of the Chain Pier and the 
Downs, directed me to Brighton; and, rejecting the 
old woman's statement, that the town began with a 
P, I prepared at once to start for that fashionable 
watering-place. A few minutes before I sent for the 
cab, a letter without a signature, written in a strange 
hand, and directed to me, arrived through the post. 
Its contents were as follows : — 

" Beware of Mr. Sandford, who is nothing but a respectable ad- 
venturer. Ear from having any objection to your marriage with 
his daughter, he is only too anxious to bring about the match j but, 
in such a way that no questions shall be asked concerning his child's 
prospects or wedding portion. Pause, and reflect. — Your Well- 
wisher." 

I treated this base missive with the contempt it 
deserved. If it had contained any libel upon her 



MY TWO PARTNERS. 159 

whom I was flying to meet, I would have found out 
the writer at any cost; but, as it merely confined 
itself to remarks upon her parent, I put it in my 
pocket, and thought no more about it. In a few 
hours I was at Brighton, gazing upon the sad sea 
waves. 

x. 

The afternoon and evening passed wearily enough; 
for she was not to be seen. I sought her on the 
beach, the promenade, the Downs, and in the assem- 
bly rooms, but without success. I felt that I was 
rash in betraying my arrival in places where I might 
be discovered by Mr. Sandford; but I could not 
control my impatience until the morning. As dusk 
approached I gave up the search, and settled down 
to a late and solitary dinner in the melancholy coffee- 
room of my hotel. The cutlet was tough ; the wine 
was hot and acid ; the waiter painfully obsequious ; 
a clock was ticking with maddening regularity, and 
a fellow-visitor, who ought to have been sociable, 
was glaring at me, ever and anon, from an opposite 
table. At times the thought came across me that I 
might have been deceived by the advertisement, and 
my only comfort was to stick it before me against 
the cruet-stand, and read it all through the meal. 

At last the morning came, and, at the appointed 
time, I hastened to the pier. The direction was 
Tight. I was not deceived. She stood before me, 



160 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

more lovely than ever. I asked, after the first salu- 
tations were over, at what hotel or lodging they were 
staying; and was answered, " At neither/' 

' ' Where then/' I inquired, perceiving some hesi- 
tation on the part of the lovely Emma, " if not at 
one of these usual places ?" 

" At an uncle's, Edwin," she replied in a sorrow- 
ful tone ; " would that it had been otherwise." 

" Tell me more, Emma," I replied, " for there is 
something which you are concealing from me." 
' ' It is a cousin, Edwin." 
" A cousin, Emma?" 

"Yes. They call him refined; because he does 
nothing but smoke, play at billiards, and spend half 
his time in a yacht ; but he is no favourite of mine ; 

and rather than marry him" 

" Marry him, Emma ! Surely your father can 
have no such design ? " 

" It is too true, Edwin ; and any day I may be 
compelled to bid adieu to you for ever." 

"This shall not be ! Fly with me, Emma; — fly 
from this fashionable and detestable place." 

" I cannot, Edwin. Where can I go ? — unless — " 
" Speak : I will take you anywhere ; but fly, and 
fly at once." 

" To my aunt Buckram's, then ; she will do any- 
thing I ask her." 

In a few hours we had reached the desired haven in 
London ; and the next morning saw us man and wife. 






MY TWO PARTNERS. 161 

XI. 

My honeymoon was not without its troubles,, 
though my wife was not the cause of them. My 
friend, Mr. Nickel (whom I suspected of having 
written the anonymous letter), departed one morning, 
from his post as my factory-inspector, with a consi- 
derable sum of money which he never accounted 
for. 

On the next day to the one on which he left the 
country, my father-in-law, Mr. Sandford, made his. 
appearance, calling upon us suddenly as we were 
seated at breakfast. 

" I come here," he said, " in no spirit of enmity.. 
You have acted without my consent ; but I freely 
forgive you. The portion I might have given my 
daughter, Emma, if the marriage had been conducted 
in the regular way, will now remain a secret until 
after my death." 

After we had thanked him for his kindness, and 
had wished him a life as long as Methuselah's, he 
continued : — 

"I am not surprised that your inspector, Mr. 
Nickel, betrayed his trust, and embezzled your pro- 
perty. I knew him some years ago, and I never had 
a favourable opinion of him." 

" Is it possible?" I exclaimed. 

" You are young and inexperienced," he conti- 
nued, " and I am a man of the world. Go and enjoy 
yourselves, while you can, and, repugnant as the 

M 



162 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

bone-boiling establishment is to me, I will look after 
your interests — as a father." 

" Mr. Sandford/' I replied, " I cannot allow this 
generous sacrifice. After all that you have said re- 
garding this repulsive business" 

"I only do my duty/' he interrupted. "One 
member of my family has already become your 
partner for life. I propose to join the firm also. 
From this hour you will consider me your acting 
partner." 

And he became a partner ; I scarcely know how. 
Sometimes I think of the anonymous letter, and 
suspect his disinterestedness; but one glance at my 
gentle and amiable wife reconciles me to all. 



163 



POOR TOM.— A CITY WEED. 



When I first became acquainted with poor Tom 
Craddock he was about twenty- five years of age. 
His appearance never altered. He must have been 
the same at fifteen as he was at forty. Imagine a 
short, shambling figure, with large hands and feet, a 
huge water-on-the-brain looking head, surmounted 
by rough, stubbly, red hair; eyes that no mortal 
ever saw; for, suffering from a painful ophthalmic 
disease, they were always encased, not so much in 
spectacles as in a perfect bandage of green glass; 
dress which, though ill-made and of necessity thread- 
bare, was always clean and respectable. Imagine 
these things, and you have all that I care to dwell 
upon of the physical characteristics of poor Tom. 
He was earning a very scanty pittance as an usher, 
or, rather, common drudge, at a classical and com- 
mercial academy at Hackney, where I was sent as a 
youth to learn the science of book-keeping by single 
and double entry, and to post up and arrange nume- 
rous imaginary transactions of great intricacy and 
enormous magnitude in sugar, hides, and tallow. 
Tour's intellectual acquirements were on a par with 
his physical advantages. Being sent out by his 
parents into the world to shift for himself, as his 



164 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

father had done before him, he had shifted himself 
into a very ill-paid and monotonous occupation. 

Tour's parents were, no doubt, very good people, 
as the world goes. The father was a quiet plodding 
man, with no ideas beyond the routine of his office. 
He had been put into an ordinary government situ- 
ation in his early youth, and had trudged backward 
and forward on the same old road for eight and fifty 
years. The mother was a hard, dry, Calvanist, cram- 
med to the throat with doctrine, but with neither 
head nor heart. Her children — and she had eight — 
were all the same to her; the girls went out and 
kept schools, and the boys went into the world to 
sink or swim, as their father had done before them. 
They had all been decently clothed and fed up to a 
certain age — they had all had the same meaningless 
education — they had all sat under the same minister, 
and had served as teachers in the same Sunday 
school. They were all — with the exception of Tom 
— cold, hard, selfish, and calculating; there was no- 
thing like love amongst them ; its place was supplied 
by a propriety of regard that was regulated by the 
principle of duty. 

Though poor Tom, with his half-blind eyes, and 
general physical disadvantages, merited a treatment 
a little removed from the rigid equality which go- 
verned his parents in their family organization, he 
never met with it ; he was one of the eight, and he 
had his eighth of attention — neither more nor less. 



POOR TOM. A CITY "WEED. 165 

His mental training was even below the level of his 
brothers and sisters, because the medical attendance, 
consequent upon his diseased eyes, took from the 
fund that was methodically set aside for his educa- 
tion. If, as was the case in the year when he under- 
went an operation, the surgical expenses swallowed 
up the educational fund, and something more, his 
clothes fund was debited with the difference, and he 
suffered for his bodily failings in a short supply of 
boots and hats. The father kept a book in which he 
had opened debtor and creditor accounts with all his 
children, as if they had been so many mercantile 
vessels. "When Tom arrived at the same a^e as his 
brothers had arrived at when they went out before 
him, he received the same hint that it was time that 
he sought for a means of obtaining a livelihood ; and, 
feeling his own short-comings, and w T ant of energy, 
he accepted the offer of a chapel connection, and 
quietly sank into the position at the school in which 
I found him. 

Poor Tom's personal appearance gave rise to all 
kinds of heartless jokes, such as only self-willed 
thoughtless schoolboys make. His eye-glasses were 
always a fruitful source of amusement. Many a lad 
in all the full glow of health, has tried to break those 
green coverings, to see what kind of eyes were con- 
cealed behind them. Tom bore all with wonderful 
patience and amiability of temper. He had small 
authoritv over the bovs, for want of force of charac- 



166 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

ter, but his uniform kindness did a great deal, and 
many a little tormentor has shed bitter tears of re- 
morse, when he found the way in which his annoy- 
ance was returned. Tom's income was exceedingly 
small, far under the average of ushers' stipends, but 
he was very careful and independent with it. Once 
away from home he sought for no assistance there ; 
and by great economy and self-denial he was always 
able to indulge in the luxury of buying little presents 
for his favourites in the school. One day, shortly 
after the midsummer holidays, Tom appeared in what 
looked like a new coat, but which, he told me 
privately, was a very good second-hand one, that he had 
been some time raising the purchase-money for. It 
was the day for cleaning and replenishing all the 
inkstands and lamps in the school, and this was a 
duty that Tom had to perform. While occupied in 
his task, his coat was carefully hung up behind a 
door, though not so carefully but what it caught the 
eye of a mischievous lad, whose name I forget now, 
and who, knowing that it was a new garment belong- 
ing to Tom, thought it would be capital fun to fill 
the pockets with oil. When Tom found out the 
cruel trick that had been played upon him, I 
observed tears oozing from under his green specta- 
cles, and for the first time since he had been at the 
school, he made a complaint to the master. The 
master, a stout, pompous man, replied in these 
words, " Mr. Cracldock, sir ; if you had preserved a 



POOR TOM. — A CITY WEED. 167 

proper authority over my boys, this event would not 
have happened. " I shall chastise the offender to 
preserve the discipline of my school ; but, at the same 
time, I do not consider you free from blame." 

The chastisement, to do the master justice, was 
severe enough, and poor Tom, seeing this, blamed 
himself \evy much for having made the complaint, 
and could not persuade himself that he had not been 
actuated by a hasty and unchristian spirit of revenge. 

Tom repaired the damage done to his garment as 
well as he could with my aid, and would have walked 
about in it contented enough; but he had been 
nduced to buy the coat, sooner than he would other- 
wise have done because the master had told him, that 
" he wished him to appear a little more gentlemanly 
for the credit of the school/ 5 and Tom now feared 
that he should be ordered to purchase another. A 
favourite relaxation of the tedium of study used to 
be an excursion of the whole school to the Temple 
Mills at Tottenham. An excursion of this kind took 
place about a week after the above occurrence, and 
Tom was put quite at his ease when we started with- 
out any remark being made upon his greasy costume. 
It was the last excursion that we had, for at the close 
of the day a boy got away from the ranks — the boy 
who had poured the oil over Tom's coat — and wasfound 
drowned in the river Lea. Of course, the master — 
who had done nothing but eat and lounge the whole 
day — threw all the blame upon Tom, who, poor 



168 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

fellow, was nearly worn to death with his day's work, 
for in a conscientious spirit, that no one might suffer 
from his bodily defects, he always devoted a double 
amount of labour to any task that he undertook. 
He passed a wretched night, grieving for the lost 
boy, grieving that he had caused him any pain by 
the punishment that he had procured him a week 
before, and racking himself with doubts as to whether 
he might not have prevented the accident by greater 
care, activity, and thoughtfulness, although I knew 
that he had borne nearly the whole fatigue of the 
excursion. As I expected, the master discharged 
him the next morning, with an impressive censure 
upon his carelessness, and some cruel remarks upon 
defects which poor Tom was only too painfully con- 
scious of. 

It was some ten years after this, that I got poor 
Tom a situation as junior clerk, under me, in the 
counting-house of Biddies and Co. — old Biddies — in 
the West India trade. Tom's father had died shortly 
after he had left the school at Hackney, and Tom 
had come into one of a number of small legacies, 
which his father had left in equal proportions to all 
his children. Tom received the amount from his 
eldest brother, the executor, after a deduction of 
about one-third, for loans and interest, medical 
attendance, etc., as per account rendered, from the 
family ledger before alluded to. Small as the sum 
was, to a person of Tom's humble ideas and inex- 



POOR TOM. A CITY WEED. 1G9 

pensive tastes, it was a mine of wealth. By great 
good management lie contrived to live upon it for 
nearly ten years, and it was almost drawing to an 
end when I seized the opportunity that offered of 
placing him in our counting-house. Tom had not 
been idle during these ten years. He had inserted 
advertisements in the papers, he had canvassed 
friends, he had walked many times wearily and 
diffidently into offices and warehouses, he had begged 
to be employed; but his conscientious fidelity, his 
industrious zeal, his noble and valuable qualities, 
were sent away as if they had been the veriest 
drug in the market, because he could not carry 
his heart upon his sleeve. And yet no sooner 
had he left the door, than those who spurned him 
were loudly asking for that which had just been 
offered to them in vain. It is useless to preach 
about not judging by appearances; to say that merit 
will make itself discovered under the most ungainly 
exterior ; that if the kernel be good it matters little 
what the shell may be ; I know better ; we all know 
better. Qualities of the heart, far more valuable 
than any intellectual gifts, or force of will, embodied 
in weak and unsightly frames, may hover near us 
like unseen angels, and be unheeded, trifled with, 
doubted, and despised. The brazen face and the 
strong lungs are the practical rulers of the world. 
During Tour's endeavours to get employment he had 
lost twenty pounds of his little store by leaving it as 



170 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

a "cash deposit/' or " guarantee of fidelity/' with a 
e \ general merchant/' who left him in charge of a very 
dull, quiet, ill -furnished office, for about ten days, at 
the end of which time even Tom became aware, that 
he had been swindled out of his money. 

I got poor Tom into old Biddies' office in this 
way. Old B. liked to buy his labour, like everything 
else, in the cheapest market, and when a new junior 
clerk was proposed, I introduced Tom to do a man's 
work at a boy's price, and that way of. putting it so 
excited the cupidity of the old fellow, that I had the 
satisfaction of carrying my point at once. Small as 
the salary was, Tom was grateful, and never did 
servant serve a master with more honesty and scru- 
pulous fidelity than Tom did old Biddies. Punc- 
tual to a second in arriving at his desk, steady and 
industrious in his application to work, religiously 
exact in his economy of time (which being paid for 
employing he did not consider his own), considerate 
and correct in all matters of office expenditure, treat- 
ing other people's property as tenderly as if it had 
been his own — a man with few desires, no debts, and 
with always a little set aside out of his small store 
for purposes of charity. What did he gain by all 
these virtues? Was Tom looked up to with more 
respect by his fellow-clerks ? I am afraid not. Was 
he advanced to any position of trust by his employer ? 
I am sure not. He was treated with even more than 
the general suspicion that characterized old Biddies' 



TOOK TOM. — A CITY WEED. 171 

dealings with everyone in business — friend or foe, 
clerk or client. Tom did not command admiration 
by any showy abilities, and his solid virtues were left 
to rot in neglect. 

Thus poor Tom did his duty nobly, from year to 
year, without any encouragement, though he needed 
none ; a poor simple-hearted, honest fellow, he had 
no idea that he was acting differently from other 
people. " You know, Robert," he used to say to me, 
" we are not all gifted with talent ; I feel that I am 
neither active nor clever, but I do my best, and I 
hope Mr. Biddies is satisfied, though I sometimes 
fear that he is not." This remark was generally 
made after one of those miserable wet, busy, muddy 
November days, when Tom was kept running about 
from nine to six, under a short faded macintosh cape, 
and when old Biddies was more than usually surly. 

We passed in this way something like five years 
together, until I had a serious attack of illness that 
kept me away from my office many weeks. Tom, 
after the labour of the day, seldom missed calling 
to inquire about me, long as the distance was, and 
very often brought me little delicacies suited for an 
invalid. I could not prevent his bringing them, 
although I felt that their purchase must have pinched 
him in various ways. The nature of my complaint 
made it necessary for me to take a holiday of a couple 
of months ; and so great was poor Tom's fear that 
such a long absence would lead to my dismissal by 



172 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

old Biddies — although even in this anxiety there was 
not a particle of selfishness — that I was compelled to 
tell him that my engagement was under articles that 
could not he broken. 

When I returned re-invigorated to my duties, I 
found, to my surprise, a marked change in Tom. 
His manner was evidently embarrassed, and in his 
appearance there was a feeble and clumsy attempt to 
be buckish. When a man returns to an office after 
an absence of some months everything seems to him 
cold and strange ; he does not fit into his accustomed 
corners, his papers look spectral, he hardly knows 
where to put his coat, and his hat tumbles down from 
its peg. If the place has been repainted and fur- 
nished (as mine had been), this makes matters worse. 
I did not question Tom the first or second day, as I 
thought much of his altered appearance might have 
been a partial delusion of my disordered imagination. 
On the third day I fancied from his nervous beha- 
viour that he was about to make some explanatory 
disclosure, and I was not disappointed. After much 
hesitation and preamble, which he, poor fellow, was 
little adept in, it came out at last : Tom was in love 
— deeply, earnestly in love. When he had secured 
me as his confidant a load seemed to have departed 
from his mind, and he was happier and gayer than I 
had ever known him before. As to myself, I was 
lost in various reflections. I laughed the first and 
last unkind laugh at Tom's expense, when I thought 



POOR TOM. A CITY WEED. 1/3 

of him ogling his chosen one through those eternal 
green glasses. I wondered if the strong olive tint 
which her face of necessity bore, stood to Tom as the 
rose upon the damask cheek of beauty seen through 
the naked eye. Did he kiss those taper-fingers which 
must have appeared to him as if they were fresh 
from the dye-tub. or the task of walnut-picking? 
Did nature, which had appeared to his faint vision, 
for so many years, a gloomy picture clad in one solemn 
tint, brighten up with a more cheerful glow, now that 
this new light had fallen on his heart ? Poor Tom, 
when I looked at him sitting there before me, his 
awkward shape and disfigured countenance, I dreaded 
lest his choice should have fallen upon some thought- 
less, selfish girl, and felt a foreboding that his passion 
would only end in misery and bitter disappoint- 
ment. 

Tom was too happy to notice my abstraction, 
and his only desire was to consult me about the 
capabilities of his scanty income to support a wife. 
Here, with hard figures to deal with, I was obliged 
to reason severely, but every objection that I started 
was overruled by Tour's explanation of the personal 
privations he could undergo for the attainment of 
domestic happiness. It was needless for him to enter 
into details with me, who knew his qualities so well, 
to prove what a considerate, devoted husband he 
would be. I knew that his income was inadequate, 
and the tone of my advice was to dissuade him from 



174 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

nourishing an affection that, I felt assured,, must be 
hopeless. 

The next morning, poor Tom appeared with a 
long list of figures, with which he had been working 
out a problem over-night, and had arrived at the con- 
clusion, that if he could obtain another twenty pounds 
a-year from old Biddies, he might attempt the step 
he was anxious to take, with perfect propriety. "When 
he consulted me as to whether I thought he would 
get the advance, I felt that his mind was made up, 
and knowing that his long and faithful services 
merited even a greater reward, I told him to go 
boldly to old Biddies and ask at once. It was Satur- 
day morning; old Biddies was very late, and when he 
came, he was very busy ; he went out several times, 
a very unusual thing with him, and when he returned, 
many people were waiting to see him. All this 
threw poor Tom into a fever of excitement ; he kept 
running in and out of Biddies' private room in such 
an unceremonious manner, and upon such frivolous 
pretexts, that at last the old fellow asked him if he 
was ill? This brought Tom to a stand, and he 
timidly made his proposal. Old Biddies took time 
to consider. Tom augured favourably from this, and 
the next day, Sunday, he prevailed upon me to join 
him in a visit to the family of his intended wife. 

She was much younger than Tom, stout, florid, 
and rather vulgar-looking. I watched her closely, 
and her treatment of him, though at times flighty 



POOR TOM. A CITY WEED. 175 

and inconsiderate, did not appear unkind. Tom was 
so absorbed in the contemplation of his happiness, 
that I was left pretty much to my own resources, 
and conversation with a sister. When the visit 
closed, although I had my doubts, I was unable to 
form a conclusion whether the affection on the part 
of the girl was real or simulated. Monday passed 
over in silence; on Tuesday the blow fell. About 
ten o'clock a letter was delivered to Tom, which told 
him that she for whom he was ready to give up all 
the comforts he so much needed, for whom he was 
even then planning out some little, thoughtful pre- 
sent, and to whom he had given all the great affec- 
tion of his kind and noble heart, had encouraged his 
passion like a cruel, wayward girl, and now threw it 
aside without pity or remorse. 

Close upon this shock followed a formal discharge 
from old Biddies. He had weighed Tom's proposal. 
Virtue and fidelity which were endurable at fifty 
pounds a-year, were not to be tolerated at seventy. 
The supply was greater than the demand. Biddies 
was a practical, business man. 

Some few years afterwards, when poor Tom's 
shattered frame and broken heart were lying peace- 
ably in the grave, and his clerkly successor at forty 
pounds a-year had embezzled money to a considerable 
extent, old Biddies felt that for once he had made a 
mistake, and thought of an awkward, green-spec- 



176 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

tacled clerk who used to sit in his office, and who, if 
not brilliant, was trustworthy. 

" Do you know Craddock's address?" he asked, 
one morning, as I entered his room. 

" He has been dead some time," I replied. 

" Hum ! Put an advertisement in the Times for 
somebody like him." 

We did put an advertisement in the Times for 
somebody like him ; but old Biddies found he could 
not get another Tom Craddock merely by drawing a 
cheque for him. 



177 



VESTIGES OF PROTECTION. 



I am a stern, unflinching, thorough-going free-trader. 
"Whenever I use a cab, I give a cabman whatever he 
thinks proper to demand ; and when any regulation 
comes out about omnibus fares, I shall pay no more 
regard to it than I do to the orders of the Trinity 
Board. That's my character — firm and consistent. 

I like clean boots. I may be stout and puffy as 
regards figure ; but my feet are always neat. Much, 
however, as I covet clean boots, I will not have them 
polished by a gaudy little Protestant ruffian, clad in 
red sackcloth, like a drummer in the Spanish legion, 
or another gaudy little Catholic ruffian, clad in yel- 
low or blue sackcloth, like a badly-dressed jockey at 
Newmarket. I hate a Protestant shoeblack as I hate 
a Protestant champion at a parliamentary election ; 
and I hate a Catholic shoeblack in the same pro- 
portion. I do not deal with a Protestant baker, I do 
not employ a Protestant sweep, I do not patronize a 
Protestant butcher, and I will not encourage a Protes- 
tant shoeblack. I am not clothed by a Catholic tailor, 
I am not shaved by a Catholic barber, my dustbin 
is not emptied by a Catholic dustman, and I will not 
have my boots cleaned by a Catholic shoeblack. 

I will not allow the police to be the sole judges 

N 



178 UNDER, BOW BELLS. 

of markets. I will not, without protest, give them 
the power to determine when any street trade is 
overstocked, and to say, " So far shall you go, and 
no farther." If there is such a demand for good 
boot-cleaning, let it be fully supplied, until four 
stockbrockers are polished off for a penny instead of 
one. Let the plinth of every column, the base of 
every statue, the recess of every archway, bristle with 
unfettered shoeblacks, plying their useful trade in 
sublime indifference to the periodical passing to and 
fro of the hateful obstructive officer of the law. Why 
should I, in a free country — a tax-payer of thirty 
years' standing — be left in the front of Bow Church, 
in the broad glare of a summer's day, in the ridicu- 
lous position of having one trouser-leg tucked up, and 
the other not — with one boot polished and the other 
not ; or, which is equally annoying, with one boot 
shining like a mirror, and the other presenting a 
dead, dull surface of wet blacking that has gradually 
got dry, because I have employed a shoeblack unla- 
beled as Protestant or Catholic ? Why should I, for 
the same reason, be subject to the indignity of having 
a boy with a foot-box, blacking-bottle, and shoe- 
brushes slung over his shoulders, beckoning me round 
the corner of a banking-house, as if I was playing 
touchorhi-bob-ree, or taking a part in some nefarious 
proceeding ? Why, administrative reformer, should 
I be condemned to a weary pilgrimage about town, 
with one boot muddy and the other polished, to find 



VESTIGES OF PROTECTION. 179 

a legally qualified Protestant or Catholic shoeblack to 
restore the ornamental balance under the protection 
of the police ? I say again, Why ? 

Why am I interrupted in the middle of a purchase 
of a few ribstone pippins, because my unfortunate 
fruiterer stands behind an old basket in the street, 
instead of a massive mahogany counter inside a mag- 
nificent plate-glass shop ? Why do I see her flying 
across the road at the approach of a policeman, scat- 
tering her wares in the frightful hurry of the transit ? 
Why am I ordered into a flashy depot, to give six- 
pence for a peach, paying for all the gorgeous fittings 
which I do not want, and which I detest, when I can 
buy the same, if not a better article outside, if the 
law would only allow me, for one penny ? Why are 
humble traders to be prevented from supplying me 
with the exact thing that I want, at the exact time 
that I want it, and at the lowest possible price, be- 
cause their capital will not allow them, or their trade 
does not require them, to stand anywhere else than in 
the gutter ? I ask again, Why ? 

I hate shams ; and I ask why my place of dissi- 
pation is sometimes called a Casino, and sometimes 
a Dancing Academy ? I want to know why a thing 
that is considered to be rotten, utterly bad, and to be 
exterminated at any cost in the parish of Saint Strait- 
lace the Martyr, can be immediately transplanted, to 
flourish in the adjoining parish of All Serene? I 
want to know what earthly good a licensing system 



180 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

is, which merely alters the title of a place from Casino 
to Dancing Academy, the thing itself remaining the 
same? 

I cannot imagine, for a moment, why any public- 
house, which has already got fall permission to sell 
any quantity of the fiery, maddening liquors which 
eat into mind, and body, and soul, should be refused 
the power of tempering that permission with a little 
harmless music. I may sit for hours on a tub in front 
of a glittering bar, drinking the awful poisOn, in the 
company of half-palsied juniper idiots, and no one 
will interfere with me in the name of the law j but if 
I go into a spacious, well-lighted building, at the rear 
of the house, and join a large and comparatively well- 
conducted audience of common people who have 
learned to drink less, and to seek harmless amuse- 
ment more, and if the man who is singing on the 
small stage, and the little orchestra which accom- 
panies him are not licensed pursuant to the twenty- 
fifth of King George the Second, I stand a chance of 
spending my night in the comfortless cell of a police- 
station for taking part in an illegal entertainment. 

I want to know what purpose that part of the 
licensing system serves, which is applied to the regu- 
lation of the sale of intoxicating drinks? I am sure 
of one great fact, that supplied how, when, or where 
it is, a certain quantity of gin, for example, will be 
used in this country at a certain price within a certain 
time. If the licensing system has any effect, it dete- 



VESTIGES OF PROTECTIOX. 181 

riorates tlie quality of all tlie gin sold in the given 
time, without decreasing the quantity directly, or 
through the operation of an increase in price. Sup- 
ply and demand will fit into each other in spite of 
supposed legislative restrictions. The licensing sys- 
tem, by increasing the cost of supply, in this case, 
has given the consumer turpentine instead of gin, 
for the consumer will not have his quantity lessened 
or his price raised, and the supplier meets the diffi- 
culty by adulteration. 

If gin was sold to-morrow at every apple-stall, if 
rum-punch was manufactured and ladled out at street- 
corners like stewed eels, and if beer was hawked about 
in cans from house to house, like milk, does any reflect- 
ing mind suppose that our workhouses, our prisons, 
and our lunatic asylums, would be overrun with 
paupers, thieves, and madmen, more than they are 
now ? When men resort to those very convenient 
and unmolested dens of vice, whose outward shell of 
apparent virtue consists of a tea-pot, a French roll, 
two stale eggs, and the word Coffee written in pro- 
minent letters upon the shop-window blind, they find 
a strange charm in drinking the forbidden fire-water 
in a tea-cup, long after midnight, purely because they 
are engaged in something which the law, in its wis- 
dom, has thought proper to prohibit. "When the 
night- cabman goes over to the very early breakfast- 
stall, and behind the friendly shelter of the bacon, 
the coffee-cups, and the quartern-loaves, asks the 



182 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

guileless proprietor, with a wink, for a drop of 
"physic," he does so, in many cases, for no other 
reason than because the <e physic" is a little more 
difficult to get at than coffee. When once the great 
intoxicating drink-selling monopoly is broken up, and 
the trade is not confined to a number of metropolitan 
licensed palaces, dram- drinking, divested of all its 
meretricious and alluring adjuncts^, is likely to de- 
crease in proportion as it descends to the common- 
place level of the oyster-stall and the baked potato- 
can. 

So much for trade restrictions ; now for certain 
branches of commerce that are more free than wel- 
come. 

Why do I find stall-keepers limited, and hetero- 
dox shoeblacks forbidden, under the pretext that they 
interfere with the street traffic, when I cannot walk 
down any large trading thoroughfare without being 
compelled to pass under groves of cabbages, groves 
of carpet brooms, groves of blucher-boots, and groves 
of legs of mutton ? Why should I be edged into the 
gutter because little Reels, the haberdasher, has 
once, during a long trading career, received an enor- 
mous truss full of some stuff or another from the 
country, and he likes to keep it on the pathway in 
front of his shop the whole day long, that his neigh- 
bours may see what a gigantic trade he is doing, and 
that his rival over the way may be driven mad with 
envy ? Why should I be edged into the gutter be- 



VESTIGES OF PROTECTION. 183 

cause old Yoicks, the saddler, or young Strawbottom, 
the upholsterer, has positively packed up ten wooden 
cases, the size of egg-chests, which he places across 
the pavement for several days, that the public may 
see they are directed to no less a person than " His 
Excellency the Right Honourable Lord Peppercraffc, 
Ramihumbug, East Indies ? *' 

Why am I, in the heat of a summer's day, con- 
demned to walk under long avenues of meat ; sirloins 
of beef, far from fresh, melting loins of mutton, and 
sheep slung up by their legs, with their bleeding 
noses and cracked crowns dangling at my feet, be- 
cause a little knot of butchers have found it profitable 
and convenient to extend their trade from the narrow 
limits of their shops, under awnings carried across 
the pathway, flush with the gutter? Why am I 
hustled under the unwelcome shade by greasy bullies, 
who ask me in stentorian tones to buy, intimidating 
me all the while with knives of fearful aspect ? 

Why am I brought to a dead stand under a simi- 
lar awning, because an enterprising greengrocer has 
blocked up the way with greens and carrots, four or 
five sacks of coals, and half-a-dozen large baskets of 
potatoes ? 

Why am I compelled to wend my weary way 
under large tin baths and warming-pans, gent's 
Wellingtons at seven- and- six, firkins of butter, and 
second-hand perambulators, intermixed with easy 
chairs and fenders ? 



184 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

If the policeman is to be left the sole arbiter of 
the destinies of trade, I do not think he should be 
allowed to compound for undue leniency to a com- 
pact phalanx of encroaching shopkeepers, by excessive 
severity to a body of weak, poor, disunited, struggling, 
houseless traders. 

If law-making is to be anything but an inflated 
sham, it will be well for our legislators to see that 
they do not put down names, but realities. 

If we are to guide ourselves by the great principle 
of free trade, let us carry it into the very smallest 
nooks and crevices of commerce. There is no reason 
why we should have a penny fixed arbitrarily as the 
price for boot- cleaning, when a halfpenny might suf- 
fice; and there is certainly no reason why a lad 
should be subject to an examination in one of the 
two great schools of theological doctrine, before he is 
considered worthy to be entrusted with a blacking- 
bottle. 



185 



DOMESTIC CASTLE-BUILDING. 



If ever I allow my husband, Mr. Popjoy, to have his 
own way, I always make a mistake. Mr. Popjoy is 
very well in his business,, as a clerk in the City ; but, 
take him out of that, and he knows no more of the 
world than a babe unborn. If I trust him to select 
our Sunday's dinner from one of the City markets, 
he brings home a huge watery fish ; a side of meat 
sufficient for a barrack-full of soldiers ; or a goose, as 
large and fluffy as a child's feather-bed, and no sweeter 
than it should be. Mr. Popjoy (though I am grieved 
to say it of my own husband) is frequently taken in 
by designing persons, who ought to be picking oakum 
at the Old Bailey, or some other penal settlement. 
Whenever I see him pass the parlour window at 
exactly half-past six in the evening (his usual time of 
returning from business) with a peculiar smirk of 
satisfaction upon his face, I know that something is 
wrong. When, after delaying a little, to excite my 
curiosity, he proudly places a brace of pheasants upon 
the table, which he has bought for one and sixpence, 
of a man in the street, dressed in a smock-frock, I 
know, before I examine the birds, that they are 
stuffed with sand, and that one half of them will go 
to feed the cat, and the other half to the dust-bin. 



186 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

When Mr. Popjoy brings home a pair of patent boots 
as an unexpected present for one of the children, I 
know, before I put my hands upon them, they are 
made of brown paper ; and when the soles burst clean 
away from the upper leather in trying them on the 
child, I can only say, " It's just as I expected." Mr. 
Popjoy buys stationery of men who stand in the 
gutter, and we are, consequently, always well stocked 
with note-paper upon which no one can write, because 
it sucks up the ink like a piece of shirting. We have 
a dozen umbrellas in the house, none of which would 
shelter a dog, Mr. Popjoy having bought them of 
people who were selling off under prime cost, because 
their premises were coming down for a new street, 
or a new chapel. Sometimes Mr. Popjoy 's bargain- 
hunting propensities get him into serious difficulties, 
out of which he expects me to extricate him. 

On one occasion, he strayed into a nest of swin- 
dlers — a mock auction- mart — and before he had been 
there twenty minutes, he had nodded himself into 
two cart-loads of trashy furniture, at prices six times 
higher than their proper value. When the. rascals 
came after him with the goods in vans, I refused, of 
course, to take them in, and as Mr. Popjoy solemnly 
assured me that he had only bid for a dressing-case 
as a present to me on my approaching birth-day, of 
course I believed my husband, snatched the dressing- 
case from the hands of one of the men, put the money 
upon the door-step, and slammed the door in their 



DOMESTIC CASTLE-BUILDING. 187 

faces, after telling them to do their best and to do 
their worst. Mr. Popjoy would never have had spirit 
to do this, bnt I had ; and, as I never heard any more 
of the wretches from that clay to this, I feel that, as 
usual, I did what was right. 

Mr. Popjoy's failing for bargain-hunting at one 
period extended to houses ; and, during the time we 
hare been married (about fifteen years), if we have 
moved once we have moved a dozen times. Mr. Pop- 
joy usually employs his holidays in searching for new 
dwellings, and new neighbourhoods, although we have 
taken a long lease of the house in which we now re- 
side ; and I have positively resolved never to move 
again, unless compelled by utter necessity, until I am 
carried to my grave. 

Mr. Popjoy, as I have said before, moves in City 
circles, and very often, I am sorry to say, becomes 
acquainted with persons who do him no good, and 
only cause him to injure his family. More than once 
he has made himself surety, and has had to pay sums 
of money for. worthless scamps, which I have had to 
provide out of a legacy securely settled upon me by 
an aunt. He is always coming home with a story of 
how he could make a little fortune if he only had a 
hundred pounds to play with for three months ; but 
I have turned a deaf ear to him, or I know very well 
where poor aunt's little property would be, and what 
would be left for the dear children when they grew up. 

One evening Mr. Popjoy came home about his 



188 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

usual time to tea, and brought with him a person 
whom he introduced to me as Mr. Gasper. I never 
take kindly to strangers, because I believe they have 
designs upon Mr. Popjoy, and I am generally right. 
I consider my own and my husband's family, and our 
old friends quite as large as we can afford to keep up 
with and entertain, without adding fresh faces con- 
tinually to the number. I did not like Mr. Gasper, 
the moment he came into the room, and my un- 
favourable impression did not alter upon further 
acquaintance. He was much too polite to please me ; 
inquiring after my health and the children's, as if he 
had known us twenty years. He was younger than 
my husband — perhaps about forty years of age — and 
had a sneaking expression upon his countenance. 
When he spoke, he lifted up his head, half-opened 
his mouth, and half- closed his eyes, as if very short- 
sighted, and made much use of a double eye-glass. I 
believe he was a good deal sharper in his sight than 
either Mr. Popjoy or myself. 

When we were seated at the tea-table, Mr. Gasper 
opened the conversation, my husband remaining 
very quiet, and appearing more nervous than usual, 
as if he had something upon his mind. 

" Mrs. Popjoy," said Mr. Gasper, " I am indebted 
to a very unexpected circumstance for the pleasure of 
your esteemed acquaintance : Mr. Popjoy has this 
day expressed a wish — in fact, I may say, has made 
arrangements — to participate in the many advantages 



DOMESTIC CASTLE-BUILDING. 189 

to be derived from the General Freehold Society of 
the Banded Brothers of Freedom." 

I hate to be addressed with anything like an ora- 
tion; it shows me plainly that the speaker is not 
straightforward. 

" Mr. Gasper," I said, " my husband, Mr. Pop- 
joy, has joined many absurd societies in his time, to 
his children's cost. He has walked in a procession 
with a band of music in front of him, and a ridicu- 
lous sash round his waist, to dine with his company 
at Hornsey Wood, or some other remote tavern ; but 
I never yet knew him want to join any society that 
sounded so much like a family of acrobats as the one 
you mention." 

" It's a very beneficial investment, my dear," 
broke in Mr. Popjoy. 

"My dear madam," returned Mr. Gasper, laugh- 
ing in a forced manner, " Mr. Popjoy very properly 
does not like to do anything without consulting you, 
and hence my present visit. The Banded Brothers 
of Freedom is not in any way a convivial society. We 
never had such a thing as a public dinner, and we 
never shall. We exist only for plain and profitable 
business purposes." 

" Fm very glad to hear it," I replied, " for your 
own sakes; but profitable business, on his own ac- 
count, is what my husband is least fitted for. He 
makes an excellent servant, but a very bad master." 

" My dear," said Mr. Popjoy, meekly, " you 



190 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

know I never failed in anything but for want of 
capital/'' 

"My dear Mrs. Popjoy," continued Mr. Gasper, 
becoming more bland and familiar every moment, " I 
need not point out to yon, as a woman of the world, 
the necessity of providing for a rising family, by 
seeking the most favourable investment for any little 
money it may have pleased fortune, in its bounty, to 
bestow upon us." 

" I don't believe in anything but the funds," I 
replied, shortly. 

li You will pardon me for saying that is a very 
great mistake. Suppose, for example, you have five 
hundred pounds in consols. It brings you in fifteen 
pounds a-year — safe, it is true, but what is it?" 

". A comfortable little sum," I replied, " and one 
which some people find very convenient at times." 

I said this rather warmly and pointedly to my 
husband, for I now began to see the object of Mr. 
Gasper's visit. 

Mr. Popjoy, wanting the courage himself, had 
doubtless brought home his new friend to persuade 
me into supplying the funds for shares in the Banded 
Brothers' Society, of which, I afterwards learned, 
Mr. Gasper was the manager. 

Mr. Popjoy winced under my remark, and said 
nothing ; but Mr. Gasper continued his argument. 

" There are other duties which we owe to society, 
Mrs, Popjoy, and, through that, to our families, be- 



DOMESTIC CASTLE-BUILDING. 191 

sides seeking for large dividends. Your esteemed 
husband lias now lived in the world for five-and-forty 
years, without knowing what it is to enjoy a vote in 
the government of his country." 

" He's none the worse for that," I returned. 

" Pardon me," replied Mr. Gasper, " a vote is 
money; and even if it was not, no,. intelligent man 
should be without it." 

"I quite feel that," echoed Mr. Popjoy. 

(( The General Freehold Society of the Banded 
Brothers of Freedom," continued Mr. Gasper, " gives 
you that vote in the proportion of one to every five 
shares, besides creating in you that ennobling feeling 
of satisfaction and independence which every man 
must experience who digs in his own garden, and 
lives in his own house." 

' : That depends very much," I replied, ' ' upon the 
character of the house and garden, and where they 
are situated." 

c Y er y true, Mrs. Popjoy," said Mr. Gasper, 
1 ' very true, and in that remark I at once recognize 
the woman of experience. The position and prospects 
of the property belonging to the Banded Brothers of 
Freedom (whom I have the honour to represent), I 
am happy to say, cannot be assailed by any man 
with justice, and are only attacked by those who 
envy our social and political advantages." 

Mr. Popjoy nodded approval at this speech, but I 
said nothing, allowing Mr. Gasper to enlarge upon 



192 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

the details of his society without further interrup- 
tion. Mr. Popjoy was evidently bitten with the idea 
of becoming a small freeholder. It seemed to him 
to be the very thing he had been in search of for so 
many years without success. We had moved rest- 
lessly from house to house, taking no permanent root 
anywhere ; but now we had come within sight of the 
promised land, and there seemed to be rest and hap- 
piness for us in the future. 

This was Mr. Popjoy 's feeling, fostered by the 
judicious statements of the plausible Mr. Gasper. I 
listened to the explanation of the complicated system 
under which the Banded Brothers of Freedom worked, 
without understanding half of what I heard j and I 
am afraid that my husband was no wiser than myself, 
although he nodded assent to every assertion, and 
seemed to be highly delighted with the whole scheme. 
A plan of the Banded Brothers' Estate was laid upon 
the table, after the tea-things were removed ; and it 
looked, to me, very much like a large chess-board. 
Mr. Gasper pointed to little square patches upon the 
paper, and told us how five shares purchased one 
patch, ten shares another patch, and fifteen shares a 
third; how A was a church, and B a dissenting 
chapel, C a projected park, D a row of shops, E an 
Artesian well of the purest spring water ; how the 
broad lines were roads, the narrow line along the top 
the railway, and another line, close to it, the canal ; 
and how the whole was twenty miles from London, 



DOMESTIC CASTLE-BUILDING. 193 

in a salubrious part of a southern county, perfectly 
sheltered from the north winds, and to be reached in 
one hour by the railway. Then with regard to the 
financial system of the society, he told us how rent 
became capital, and the more we paid, the richer we 
became ; how interest charged to the fathers was a 
benefit to the children ; how every time we painted a 
water-butt, we added a value to the heir-looms of our 
family ; how the old snarling relations of landlord 
and tenant, creditor and debtor, were utterly de- 
stroyed, to be replaced by a mutual- advantage state 
of existence. Then he drew a glowing picture of the 
toil-worn clerk, flying every evening from his city 
labour on the wings of steam to his happy country 
retreat, proud in the consciousness of being a free 
and independent burgess, who had, by prudence ?nd 
co-operation, wrenched an acre of his birth-right from 
the grasping usurpation of the aristocracy. Such was 
the discourse of Mr. Gasper until a late hour of the 
evening. His advocacy had no eifect upon me, 
although it was conclusive with my husband, and I 
set my face resolutely against becoming a freeholder 
in the Banded Brothers' Estate. 

Some few days after Mr. Gasper's visit, I was 
attacked with a severe illness, which lasted for some 
weeks. "When I recovered, I was ordered to Worth- 
ing for the benefit of one or two months' sea-air. Mr. 
Popjoy came down every Saturday evening, and stayed 
until Monday morning. His mind still ran upon the 

o 



194 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

idea of becoming a small freeholder — for lie talked of 
little else during his visits. He enlarged very much 
upon the permanent benefit I should derive from a 
southern air, and he backed his arguments with a 
corroborative letter from my doctor, which I am com- 
pelled to believe he had obtained by connivance. I 
saw that there was little chance of domestic peace 
unless I consented to become a Banded Sister of 
Freedom, and, in a moment of bodily weakness, I 
gave him authority to sell out one hundred pounds of 
stock, and invest the money in any form he desired. 
I had a very slight hope that the Banded Brothers' 
Estate might turn out better than I had expected. 

I had no hand in the moving — that was agreed 
between us — Mr. Popjoy gladly superintending the 
whole of the arrangements. What things were broken, 
what things were lost, what the dear children suffered, 
is more than I need tell. My poor sister (she is now 
dead and gone), who came up from the country to 
assist my husband, told me afterwards she had seen 
many movings in her time, but nothing to equal this. 
It was worse than government emigration. It took 
them from six o'clock in the morning until eight 
o'clock at night to reach the Freehold Society's 
settlement. There were three vans and six men, who 
did just as they thought proper with Mr. Popjoy, 
stopping at every roadside ale-house, until at last 
they got almost unmanageable. The way they threw 
the things from the van into the road was awful and 



DOMESTIC CASTLE-BUILDING. 195 

heartrending j and my poor sister said it was a mercy 
that everything was not shivered to atoms. As it 
was, the loo-table, which poor mother gave me when 
I was married, was so injured that it would never 
stand upright again ; and her portrait in oil, painted 
by a gentleman who might have been a Royal Aca- 
demician if he had thought proper, had the legs of a 
kitchen-chair thrust through its face and neck in no 
less than three places. 

At last the place was got into what Mr. Popjoy 
considered something like order ; and I left Worthing 
to return to my new home. It was late at night 
when I arrived, and very dark, and I noticed nothing 
until I reached the house, carefully guided by my 
husband. 

"•My dear/' said Mr. Popjoy, "I am afraid you 
will not find the place everything you could wish ; 
but Home, you know, was not built in a day." 

I did not like the tone of this remark. It fore- 
boded no good ; but I made a cheerful reply, without 
leading him to suppose that I suspected anything. 

When I entered our dwelling, I noticed a smell of 
earth, damp mortar, and new wood, and I thought I 
saw traces of shavings in the passage. Further ac- 
quaintance with the premises showed me many other 
shortcomings and peculiarities. There were no banis- 
ters up the stairs, and no paper upon the walls ; which 
were ornamented with fantastic figures formed by the 
wet upon the plaster. The children's bed-room and 



196 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

nursery were like stable-lofts, and the roof was only 
lathed over, without a ceiling. Luckily, the weather 
had been fine and dry for several weeks, or the poor 
creatures might have been washed down the stairs. 
The back parlour was closed up ; and, for some time, 
Mr. Popjoy hesitated when I spoke to him about this 
apartment. At last he admitted that it was in a very 
unfinished state. In fact, it had scarcely been com- 
menced ; there was nothing but a brick skeleton ; 
there was no window, the hole being boarded over ; 
and there was no floor, but a deep gulf half filled with 
rubbish, which, when cleared out, would form a very 
commodious back-kitchen. Mr. Popjoy had prudently 
nailed up the door in the passage, and the two fold- 
ing-doors in the front parlour which communicated 
with this rude outline of an apartment, because one 
of the children had accidentally fallen into the gulf, 
and had been lost to his brothers and sisters for 
several hours. This state of things required some 
explanation, and Mr. Popjoy reluctantly and timidly 
proceeded to give it. 

" Mr. Gasper " he began. 

61 1 thought so," I could not help interrupting. 

** Well, my dear," he continued, meekly ; " I did 
all for the best, and it would have been better, no 
doubt, if Fd been governed by you." 

" It ought to teach you a lesson," I said, " for 
the future." 

" Mr. Gasper," he resumed, " gave me five shares 



DOMESTIC CASTLE-BUILDING. 197 

in the society of Banded Brothers of Freedom in ex- 
change for the money received from the Consols you 
authorised me to sell out. These five shares entitled 
me to a plot of land and the bare skeleton of a house ; 
the society undertaking to finish the dwelling in the 
best style within two months, in consideration of my 
taking ten other shares (value two hundred pounds) 
which were to remain in the hands of the manager 
and committee until I had paid them up by quarterly 
instalments in the form of rent ; when they would be 
delivered to me, constituting me the proprietor of the 
land and premises, to have and to hold for ever." 

" And you took the other shares? " I inquired. 

" My dear," replied my husband, " I am sorry to 
say I did, under an arrangement by which, if the 
quarterly instalments were not kept up, the amount 
was to stand over indefinitely at ten per cent, per 
annum ; one half of which interest went to pay work- 
ing expenses, salaries, et cetera, and the other half 
formed a benefit fund for the relief of sick Banded 
Brothers of Freedom, or the support of their widows 
and orphans remaining on the estate." 

" A very pretty scheme," I said — " upon paper." 

" The finishing of the house," he continued, 
" went on very slowly, even over our heads, and I 
begged your sister not to write to you about it, as I 
thought it would only worry you in the weak state 
you were in." 

" Well, Mr. Popjoy," I replied, when my husband 



198 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

had concluded, " your restlessness has brought us to 
a cheerful dwelling, at last ; but I suppose we must 
make the best of it. One thing I wish to have dis- 
tinctly understood : I shall not associate with any of 
the Banded Brothers' wives, and I hope that you will 
keep equally aloof from any of the husbands." 

" Yes, my dear," replied Mr. Popjoy, much re- 
lieved by my tone and manner, " I don't think you 
will be much troubled with either." 

It was not until the next day that I fully under- 
stood the meaning of this last remark ; for I found 
that, with the exception of two other families, we 
were the only settlers upon the freehold estate. 

The morning did not improve the aspect of the 
place. There was no washhouse at the back of the 
premises ; nothing but a vast wild desert of gravel- 
pits. In the front of the house there were no area 
railings, although there was a deep area, and there 
was clay enough to make bricks for a hundred settle- 
ments. I found, upon looking over the children's 
wardrobe, that it had much suffered by this clay ; 
and, when I inquired about several pairs of boots 
that were missing, the clay was still the only answer 
I could get in explanation. Mr. Popjoy had departed 
at an early hour, before I was up ; for it was three 
miles to the station, four- and- twenty miles by rail- 
way to London, nearly two miles more into the City, 
and my husband had to be at business by half-past 
nine in the morning. After breakfast, I started to 



DOMESTIC CASTLE-BUILDING. 199 

walk round and survey the settlement ; but I had 
not gone far when I was stopped by more soft clay, 
large ponds of water, and impassable gravel-pits. 
There was no sign of life in my immediate neigh- 
bourhood ; but I saw some children in the distance 
fishing with what appeared to be a small clothes-prop 
in one of the ponds, and I correctly supposed them 
to be members of the two other unfortunate settler 
families. There were several houses like our own in 
a very unfinished state; about a dozen half-raised 
carcases ; a few scaffold-poles lying amongst gravel- 
heaps, rubbish, and old bricks; and this, as far as I 
could see, comprised all that was visible of the Great 
Estate of the Banded Brothers of Freedom. A, B, 
C, D, E — churches, chapels, projected parks, Artesian 
wells, canals, and even roads, were no more visible 
than Mr. Gasper ; but, instead, many ponds of water 
in which that plausible villain ought to have been 
soaking. 

I returned to the house, and was astonished to see 
no workmen engaged in completing the building. I 
found upon inquiry from the children, that no one 
had been there for a week. The servant-girl, per- 
haps, might have given me more information ; but, 
when I put any questions to her, she burst into vio- 
lent fits of laughter, and seemed so thoroughly to 
enjoy the fun of living in such a wilderness, that I 
lost my patience, and gave her a month's warning 
upon the spot. When dinner-time arrived, I found 



200 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

there was no provision in the house, and no chance 
of getting any within eight miles. I then learned 
that Mr. Popjoy was in the habit of bringing home 
supplies from town (with his usual judgment as to 
selection) about twice a-week, and that the last supply 
had been exhausted a day sooner than was expected. 
I waited impatiently for the approach of evening, 
sitting at the window, watching the road along which 
I was told Mr. Popjoy would arrive, and preparing a 
severe attack upon his carelessness and stupidity in 
taking such a place, without a thorough investigation 
of Mr. Gasper's flowery statements. 

About half-past eight, one of the children (my 
little girl) ran out of the door, and by the window, 
and shortly afterwards I saw Mr. Popjoy coming 
over the gravel heaps, looking very tired, with a great 
carpet-bag in one hand, and a basket in the other. 
He put these things down to kiss the child, who 
bounded towards him, delighted at his return ; and, 
for some reason, at that moment I forgot all my 
indignation — the damp walls, the nailed-up parlour, 
the ponds, and the Banded Brothers of Freedom — 
and went to the door to give him a welcome, as our 
little child had gone before me. 

The bag and basket, as I expected, contained a 
curious mixture of food, all thrown together — meat, 
grocery, and fruit, with one or two toys, and some 
pastry-cooks' pies for the children. Those children 
who had gone to bed seemed to be aware of the 



DOMESTIC CASTLE-BUILDING. 201 

arrival, and there was a commotion up in the loft (I 
cannot call it a bed-room), until the expected pur- 
chases were taken up and shown, with a promise 
that they should be punctually delivered in the 
morning. 

I learned from my husband, by degrees, over the 
supper table, that the General Freehold Society of 
the Banded Brothers of Freedom had turned out to 
be nothing but a well-organised swindle, Mr. Gasper, 
the leading rascal, having disappeared, and the offices 
in town (where Mr. P. had called that very day to 
ascertain why the workmen were not completing our 
premises) being cleared of everything except a dusty 
fixture-desk, and a few shreds of paper thrown into 
the fireplace. My husband admitted he had made a 
great mistake ; bat he did not tell me he had drawn 
fifty pounds from his employers, by Mr. Gasper's 
pressing request, the whole of which had been handed 
over to that crafty manager, with the idea of keeping 
the carpenters and bricklayers in motion. I did not 
find this out until some time afterwards, when he got 
very shabby in his dress, and I then discovered he 
was paying it off by degrees out of his savings. 

The next day I went to town with Mr. P., and 
finding the house we had left a few weeks before still 
vacant, I took a lease of it for one-and-twenty years. 
As we were moving away from the Freehold Land 
settlement, a few days afterwards, just as I had locked 
up the empty house, and was turning to follow the 



202 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

vans, I saw three gentlemen standing by Mr. Popjoy, 
the eldest of whom, a fat, red-faced man, seemed to 
be the spokesman. 

" My dear," said my husband, as I came up, ' ' will 
you see to this ? There appears to be a little difficulty." 

"We are here," said the fat gentleman pom- 
pously, " to demand possession of those premises." 

" Which," I replied, " I must respectfully decline 
to give, without compensation." 

"Compensation!" shouted the fat gentleman. 
" Compensation ! Are you aware that you are 
squatters ? " 

" I am aware that my husband," I answered, 
"has sunk between one and two hundred pounds 
upon those premises, which I intend to have back 
before I give up the key." 

" Very well," returned the stout gentleman, "very 
well ; the whole thing — the whole place — is a swin- 
dling, squatting settlement, from beginning to end, 
and ought to have been nipped in the bud. Jones, 
serve notice of ejectment." 

My husband received from one of the other 
gentlemen a piece of paper, which we have carefully 
kept for many years. We still retain the property 
at the gravel-pits, which we visit for amusement now 
and then ; and the memory of the fat, testy gentle- 
man with the red face, has almost died away. Per- 
haps he has died away also, and his successors have 
lost my husband's address. 



203 



DEBT. 



If debt had no other attractions to recommend it, 
it would always be welcome to a certain class of 
people, because of the importance that it gives a man, 
and the interest that it causes others to take in his 
welfare, By debt, of course I 'do not mean that 
miserable blot upon our social system — that beggarly 
degree of involvement which is akin to pauperism — 
that wretched existence made up of small loans, 
obtained with difficulty, even when scrupulously 
refunded — that debt for whose victims the black 
jaws of a Mammon prison are always gaping with 
hungry voracity. The debt I speak of is that of the 
large operator — the merchant prince, whose dainty 
pampered palate revolts at capital proffered with 
blind confidence, if it is at a fraction above the 
market price; whose courage and enterprise give a 
sublimity even to bankruptcy. The debt I speak of 
is that of the dweller in marble palaces — the dignified 
receiver of the unsolicited offerings of usury and 
trade, the patron of art, of literature, and the drama, 
the noble scion of a noble house, whose mission it 
has been to raise insolvency from the dirt and mire 
of the squalid streets, and place it in a fitting temple 
where men will fall down and worship it. Oh ! thou 



204 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

poor blind reader of the book of human nature — 
thou abject wretch — thou miserable starveling — thou 
nervous, timid, hungry applicant for half- a- crown : 
is that a coat in which to effect a loan ? is that a hat 
to inspire confidence in the breast of a friend or a 
capitalist ? For mercy's sake, go either to the far west, 
and take a lesson from Tatter salFs, the Clubs, Hyde 
Park, or the grand Opera house ; or direct thy steps 
Citywards, and watch the frequenters of banks and 
discount houses, the Stock Exchange, and places 
where merchants most do congregate, and tell me if 
thou seest any man as abject in appearance as thou 
art (even when in reality, a greater beggar), except 
a few poor City pensioners, and humble, meek, and 
plodding clerks, who have worn themselves out in a 
thankless, hopeless servitude for bankrupt masters. 
Hast thou no friend among all the thriving throng, who 
instead of stopping this pressing need with a few 
fleeting shillings, will teach thee a little of his wis- 
dom, so that thou mayst in time reach a position 
similar to that which he occupies ? Far better will 
it be for thee to get a few grains of that knowledge 
which is power, rather than a few grains of that patron- 
age, assistance, or charity, which power is able to give. 
The moment that a man becomes largely in debt, 
he blossoms out into a respectable and responsible 
member of society. It is not, as many suppose, 
that he has earned this character before he became 
entrusted with the property of others. A very little 



DEBT. 205 

ability, a certain degree of boldness and assurance, 
a taking exterior, and a willingness to contract to 
pay the market rate of interest and a little more, 
will place him in possession of capital beyond the 
dreams of avarice. Once master of the position, 
he is invested with all the qualities and virtues that 
inspire admiration, confidence, and respect. If he 
wants raw produce, he has merely to hold up his 
finger, and a dozen ships are loaded for him in the 
ports of the world. If he wants the fabricated 
article, he has merely to breathe a wish, and 
mountainous waggons hasten to unload their heavy 
treasures at his gate. If he covets that precious 
metal (or its representatives) which divines call filthy 
lucre, and economists circulating medium, he has 
but to send in his card to any banker, and have a 
sack of it shovelled to him as if it was dirt. These 
are the gross and material advantages of being in 
debt — serving as the basis for a superstructure of 
higher things. 

First, there is the immense advance in social po- 
sition. What doors are closed to the large and noble 
debtor ? What dinner parties would be considered 
perfect without him ? How many needy men are 
anxious to sit near him at the table, in the hope of 
learning something useful to guide them in the path 
which he has seemingly followed with such distin- 
guished success ? Who would think of a public meet- 
ing without the gigantic debtor in the chair? If a 



206 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

trustee is wanted for a charitable fund, who so fit and 
proper to be appointed as the leviathan debtor ? 

If a public company or a joint-stock enterprise is 
flagging for various reasons, what is wanted to put it 
firmly and flourishingly upon its legs ? — The chair- 
manship of the enterprising debtor ! Did any wild 
scheme ever commend itself to popular notice, or 
endeavour to strike root, without sending one of its 
earliest prospectuses to the energetic and prosperous 
debtor ? — Never ! 

Is a cellar of choice wine — a rare work of art — a 
palatial mansion standing upon one of the finest sites 
in the metropolis — advertised for sale without an eye 
to the daring debtor ? — I am afraid not. If a seat in 
Parliament is vacant, who so fit a man to fill it as the 
active, practical debtor? — as to minor offices— com- 
mon-councillorships, churchwardenships, director- 
ships, etc., etc., how many of these are humbly and 
diffidently proffered to the massive debtor ? Would 
he like to enter into a more tender and interesting 
engagement, how many high and delicate ladies are 
waiting the commands of their parents, to be sold 
like cattle to the all- conquering debtor? 

Then there is the almost affectionate interest 
taken in nearly everything that happens to the pam- 
pered debtor. If he falls ill, what crowds of people 
— chiefly creditors — are day after day anxiously con- 
sulting his physician, and inquiring after his health. 
If he meets with an accident, what a number of per- 



DEBT. 207 

sons — chiefly creditors — come hurriedly forward with 
pressing kindness to know if it is likely to be fatal. 
Many of these kind creatures — chiefly creditors — 
even go to the length of insuring the life of the im- 
portant debtor for a considerable sum ; so strongly does 
their interest in him develop itself. If the mammoth 
debtor goes upon a continental tour for a lengthened 
period, how many persons — chiefly creditors — are 
waiting anxiously to give him a joyous welcome back. 
If his house, or warehouse, is accidentally burnt 
down, what a number of persons — chiefly creditors — 
are at once upon the spot to render assistance, and 
ascertain, if possible, what insurances there are — 
what amounts, and in what offices. 

If the bloated debtor by any chance becomes a 
defendant in a lawsuit, what a number of persons — 
chiefly creditors — wish themselves on the jury to try 
the cause. If it happens to be a Chancery suit, how 
they watch for every manifestation and decision, as 
if the spoiled debtor was their only child, going up 
for some momentous examination. If he gets in a 
position to require heavy bail, the difficulty is not so 
much in procuring one satisfactory surety, as in pick- 
ing from the number offering their services and their 
bonds. If by any possible combination of circum- 
stances a Titanic debtor could be accused of robbery, 
or even murder, what a number of trusting indivi- 
duals — chiefly creditors — with a faith quite touching 
in its constancy, would believe in his innocence to the 



208 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

very last. When the farce is over and the curtain 
dropped ; when the giant debtor has ceased to bor- 
row or to lend ; when the springs that moved him are 
found to be an inextricable web of confusion, the 
guide to which is lost ; although the whole glittering 
fabric of apparent prosperity melts like an icicle in 
the sun, and many persons — chiefly creditors— find 
that they have been gilding a gingerbread king, still 
the semblance of wealth, and the confidence that it 
excites, will cling to him to the last, as he makes a 
triumphal entry into the grave. 

Seeing that no particular or extraordinary talent 
is required for debt ; seeing that one man is as well 
adapted for it as another ; I am surprised more per- 
sons do not adopt this very easy and agreeable mode 
of getting a living. The ice once broken, every suc- 
ceeding step is easier than the last. Increase the 
amount to be borrowed, and the power of borrowing 
increases in an equal ratio. Under certain conditions, 
you shall find more difficulty in procuring half-a- 
crown than fifty thousand pounds ; although the secu- 
rity offered in both cases may bear an equal value in 
relation to the loan required ; but having obtained pos- 
session of one fifty thousand pounds, you may com- 
mand a second and a third with ever-increasing ease, 
rolling your borrowed capital over and over like a 
ball of snow, and causing more loans to stick to it 
wherever it moves. Bear in mind, that in the great 
world of debt, the small debtor is governed by his 



DEBT. 209 

creditor ; the large creditor is governed by his debtor. 
Large creditors are quiet and tractable, like dancing 
elephants ; small creditors are spiteful and uncertain, 
like wasps — wasps with a sting. 



210 



BANKRUPTCY IN SIX EASY LESSONS. 



INTRODUCTION, 

As the whole liuman race must range themselves 
under two classes, viz,, debtors and creditors, it is of 
vital importance that a man should make himself ac- 
quainted, as fully as possible, with at least the chief 
tribunal whose special function it is to deal with 
those who cannot or will not pay : — the Bankruptcy 
Court. 

Four men out of five go into business, and two of 
that number fail as a matter of course ; the wonder 
is, that this prolific and useful subject has not been 
taken up scientifically before. 

LESSON THE FIRST. THE BUSINESS. 

The first thing to do, my young friend, when you 
start in life, is to settle everything you possess upon 
your wife. Having done this legally and securely, 
take a warehouse in a good situation, and begin to 
buy. That you may be under no alarm about your 
power to do this, I will explain in a few words, the 
theory of trade. The greater part of the goods ma- 
nufactured are made by persons with little capital, 
and they are compelled to force sales, to get bills of 



BANKRUPTCY IN SIX EASY LESSONS. 211 

exchange for discount to pay for the raw material. 
The warehousemen who buy them are men of little 
or no capital, and they are compelled to hurry sales, 
to get bills for discount to pay the bills drawn -by the 
manufacturers. And so trade moves, one class con- 
tinually pushing on another. The necessity to sell is 
behind every man's back; you, therefore, need be 
under no concern about your ability to buy. Before 
you have opened your doors a week, you will scarcely 
be able to keep the commercial travellers out. Let 
it be hinted abroad — although it is not abso- 
lutely necessary for your success in failure — that 
your father-in-law is a person of property. It 
means nothing, but it will be useful in a variety of 
ways. 

LESSON THE SECOND. THE BANK. 

In the choice of a bank for discount (which you 
will not want for a few months), you will find little 
difficulty. As a rule, perhaps, you will pick out one 
of the young concerns ; but all of them, bear in mind, 
are urged on by the same necessity to trade, as the 
merchants and traders. Be easy, bold, and confident 
in your manner, and careful in your dress. One style 
does for one kind of bank, another style for another. 
Judge of this from the names of the directors ; and 
give as a reference your principal creditor, who 
by this time will take quite a fatherly interest in 
your welfare. By all means keep a good balance, 



212 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

if it is done by the discount of accommodation 
bills. 

LESSON THE THIRD. THE ACCOUNT BOOKS. 

Make this branch of your business your especial 
study, and keep it in your own hands. Many men 
understand the true art of figures, viz., to conceal 
the truth ; few are able to practise it. See that you 
are not ignorant and unskilful in this useful science. 
Raise a fictitious capital at the commencement of 
your business by a stroke of the pen, and enter at the 
beginning of your cash book, on the left hand side, 
a respectable, but not a very large sum— -say two 
thousand pounds — the disposal of which imaginary 
item you can account for amongst your imaginary 
bad debts. These are fabulous transactions with per- 
sons who are supposed to have failed, or exaggerated 
dealings with persons who really have failed ; and the 
property represented by the figures entered in the 
books you — take care of. Keep your personal ex- 
penses in appearance small, and throw the burden 
upon the trade expenses. Fail in the third or fourth 
year, if you are quite prepared for action, and go to 
the Bankruptcy Court at once, without hesitation. 
Shun deeds of inspection and assignment, because 
they place„you in the hands of those dissatisfied credi- 
tors, who in the Court are made to feel their proper 
position, and are taught that the man who fails, and 
renders an account of his failure (if he has not run 



BANKRUPTCY IN SIX EASY LESSONS. 213 

the estate too close for the expenses of the 
Court), is a very meritorious member of society. 
These are chiefly matters of pen and ink, but 
they are important, and do not let them be ne- 
glected. 

LESSON THE FOURTH. THE OFFICIAL ASSIGNEE. 

You will now be within the power of the Bank- 
ruptcy Court, a position not by any means so dis- 
agreeable as many persons suppose. As your pri- 
vate property is settled on your wife, you will not be 
troubled at home with the Messenger, as he is called, 
and the first person of any importance that you will 
see is your Official Assignee — a very gentlemanly man 
to you, as your estate will be large, and so prepared 
as to give little trouble. You will hand over to him 
in cash, et cetera, a sum more than sufficient to pay 
all the expenses of the Court (about sixty per cent, 
of your assets), and this will place matters on a very 
amicable footing. He loves you like a brother. You 
help to pay his salary, or commission — about two 
thousand a-year — the salaries of the Commissioner, 
with all the officers in and about the Court, and a good 
many far away from it — pensioners to the extent of 
sixteen thousand pounds per annum. It is absurd to 
suppose that there can be any ill-feeling between you. 
He goes over your books with you. You began with 
a capital — good ; your books have been well kept — 
good; your personal expenses are light (light for a 



214 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

person in yonr position in society) — good ; you have 
given the estate* every attention — better; you have 
handed over property sufficient to pay all expenses, 
and declare a dividend of one shilling in the pound 
before the matter has been in the energetic hands of 
Mr. Official Assignee six weeks — best. Who dares 
to say that the Court is tardy in collecting and 
distributing assets ? You may sleep, and dream of 
a first-class certificate. 

LESSON THE FIFTH. THE COMMISSIONER. 

The Commissioner is obliged, for his salary (about 
two thousand per annum), to make a show of doing 
something; and for his judicial dignity, to make 
an appearance of discouraging bankrupts. But he 
loves them for the same reason as the Official As- 
signee — loves them because they pay him ; and he 
loves them more if they give him no trouble. 
Knowing little or nothing of figures — although hav- 
ing to decide upon them more than upon law — he is, 
practically, in the hands of the Official Assignee, 
and is governed by his report in the choice and 
granting of a certificate. 

LESSON THE SIXTH. THE SOLICITOR. 

There are not more than two solicitors plead- 
ing in Basin ghall Street, who have what is called 
the ear of the Court. You will retain one of 
these, more for display and respectability than be- 



BANKRUPTCY IN SIX EASY LESSONS. 215 

cause you require him. He goes over the favour- 
able points of your trading career, lighting them 
up with a glow of approbation. The sympathis- 
ing Commissioner, prepared by the very favour- 
able report of the Official Assignee, is glad to have 
it in his power to reward you for bringing so 
good an estate to the Court, by granting an im- 
mediate first-class certificate. 



216 



WHITE WASHERTON. 

No man loves the metropolis more than I do. I can- 
not go so far in my admiration of Fleet Street as 
certain eminent literary authorities, nor can I alto- 
gether admit that beyond Hyde Park it is a desert ; 
but I will support any man who boldly asserts that 
you can get everything in London that you can get 
in the country ; and get it a hundred-fold better. 
Yet, I must reserve one peculiar and important 
exception ; and that is, the metropolitan organi- 
zation for the relief of insolvent debtors. Against 
Basinghall Street, I have nothing to say, nor do I 
mean to assert that the judges of Portugal Street 
are hard upon the embarrassed tradesman, or the 
involved young gentleman whose ignorance of the 
world and refined tastes have led him into tempo- 
rary pecuniary difficulties : common "gratitude, if no 
higher feeling, restrains me from spreading such an 
erroneous and unjust impression. Portugal Street 
is good, but — and I speak from experience, for I have 
tried both — White Washerton is better. I should 
not recommend Harrogate for medicinal waters ; I 
should not recommend Melton Mowbray for pork 
pies — Banbury for tarts — Epping for sausages — or 
Chichester for rumpsteak puddings ; but, for a 



WHITE WASHERTON. 217 

perfect, easy, and rapid relief from a mass of in- 
volvent debt, combined with rural life, field sports, 
and the advantages of neighbouring marine bathing, 
I know of no place like White Washerton under the 
sun. To call the judge who presides over White 
Washerton insolvents, kind, gentlemanly, and lenient, 
is to use terms too weak to convey the proper idea 
of his treatment of them. He is thoughtful for the 
debtor ; sympathising for the debtor ; and fatherly 
to the debtor. It may be — and report say it is — that 
he has himself suffered from the obtrusive compe- 
tition of trade, and knows how difficult it is to resist 
the overwhelming flood of wines, clothes, jewels, and 
cash, that sweeps over the young man of position. 
In every dashing young insolvent who comes before 
him, he sees a reflected picture of his own youth ; in 
every opposing creditor, a copy of the two-faced 
harpies — fawning on one side, snarling on the other 
— who alternately wheedled and threatened him when 
he was a petitioner in a similar court to that in 
which he now presides as a judge. It may be, that 
the receipt of a large annual salary for little work, 
develops the benevolent side of a man's character, and 
causes him to serve out large quantities of that un- 
strained mercy which blesses the giver, without 
taking anything Out of his pocket. Any way, explain 
it how we will, or leave it unexplained, White Wash- 
erton, in addition to all its various local advantages, 
possesses an insolvent commissioner whose Christian 



218 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

charity requires only to be fully known, to leave 
Portugal Street a barren waste, and the metropolitan 
Dracos biting their solitary nails in the awful silence 
of a deserted law-court. I may be unwise in com- 
municating my knowledge to the indebted public in 
general; but a strong desire to benefit my fellow- 
creatures has overcome every selfish consideration, 
and I record my experiences regardless of the results. 
At ten, thirty, -a.m., this morning, I stood in the 
streets of White Washerton a debtor to the extent of 
from forty to fifty thousand pounds. At six, thirty, 
p.m., this evening, I am sitting waiting for dinner, in 
a tavern not far from Bow Church, as free from debt 
as the crossing-sweeper before the door. There has 
been no personal annoyance from the idle curiosity of 
friends ; there is no irritating report in the copy of 
the evening newspaper which I hold in my hand : 
I have drunk the legal waters of oblivion, far from 
the prying eyes of obtruding witnesses, in the tree- 
% shadowed Court of the rural city of White Washerton ; 
and as I left an altered man, in a first-class express 
carriage in the middle of the day, I saw in an over- 
due Parliamentary train, the stern faces of some of 
my dilatory creditors, who had made up their minds 
to oppose at the eleventh hour, when my examination 
had closed soon after the tenth. The way in which 
all this was arranged shall be immediately explained. 
When I was in a most embarrassing position, 
with so many writs served upon me, that I could not 



WHITE WASHERTON. 219 

distinguish the several suits — those for wine, from 
those for jewels; those for money debts of my own, 
from liabilities entered into to oblige obliging friends 
— my eye rested, one morning at breakfast, upon 
the following advertisement in the columns of a lead- 
ing paper : — 

" To the Embaeeassed. — How many a noble-hearted young 
man has sunk into an early grave under the oppressive load of accu- 
mulated debt, and all for the want of a little timely advice and 
assistance! Let all those who are suffering from pecuniary em- 
barrassments, and who wish to be relieved without publicity or 
personal annoyance, apply at once to Mr. Ledger, negotiator, No. 2, 
Paradise Gfardens, Gfray's Inn Lane." 

I need scarcely say that I applied at once to Mr. 
Ledger, and found him a very shrewd, affable, agree- 
able, comforting, business man. I laid a plain state- 
ment of my affairs before him, and we soon found 
that everything was on what he called the debit, and 
nothing (except just enough to pay expenses) on what 
he also called the credit side. That night (this is 
only ten days ago) I went down by arrangement to 
White Washerton, and took prepared lodgings at the 
house of a brother of Mr. Ledger's — Mr. Erasmus 
Ledger, Solicitor, Augustine Square. I found every- 
thing very elegant and comfortable. Miss Ledger 
sang Italian songs, and played German sonatas to 
amuse us of an evening; and, in the day, I took 
exercise with the cricket-club, or joined pic-nic parties 
with the young lady and her friends. How different 



220 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

was all this from the gloomy Jewish sponging-houses 
of Chancery Lane, or the prison in Whitecross Street ! 
I had all the comforts of society and a home, while I 
was acquiring by residence the rights of a White 
Washerton citizen. 

Two days of this agreeable life was sufficient to 
complete the first stage in the Ledger process ; and, 
at the end of this time, it was necessary that I should 
be arrested. I was arrested at the hands of an inti- 
mate friend, and lodged in the clean, well-ventilated 
gaol of White Washerton for five days ; which period 
I chiefly passed in smoking my cigar on the roof of 
the prison, enjoying a splendid view of the surrounding 
country. At the end of this time bail was provided 
by the thoughtful and systematic Ledgers, and I re- 
turned once more to the refinement and luxuries of 
Augustine Square. 

In driving or riding about the town and the out- 
skirts during the next three days, I saw a number of 
men, whose gay, easy dashing manners and town 
dress made me suspect that they were on a visit to 
White Washerton, for the same purpose as myself; 
and I found, upon inquiry, that my suspicions were 
correct. They were all clients and lodgers of Mr. 
Erasmus Ledger, sent down from London by his 
energetic brother, and parcelled off into other lodging- 
houses belonging to the solicitor, because they were 
second and third-class insolvents, while I ranked 
with, and paid for, the accommodation of the first. 



WHITE WASHERTON. 221 

They enjoyed the excursion as much as I did; joined 
in the field sports ; hired open carriages to visit local 
spots of beauty or interest ; examined the architec- 
tural and antiquarian features of the city ; and even 
made short journeys to the neighbouring sea-coast, 
They dropped up to town, one by one, as their exa- 
minations came off, healthy in body, relieved in mind ; 
and making room for others visitors, who arrived to 
take their vacated places. 

Three more days of this easy life carried me to 
the morning of my examination, and I went before 
the fatherly judge, with no assets, but an elaborate 
schedule accounting for the disposal of the property 
I had consumed. I was supported by Mr. Erasmus 
Ledger, who had got the ear and the confidence of 
the Court. I was opposed by only two creditors — 
one for wine, the other for accommodation-bills. 
Mr. Ledger laid my plain, well- varnished, candid 
statement before the judge. He admitted that I 
had been imprudent — perhaps extravagant; but it 
was less my fault than the fault of the London 
tradesmen ; who will tempt young men with credit, 
with a perseverance that sweeps all resistance away. 
I had not had sufficient moral strength to resist ; few 
of us have (nod of approval from the bench) ; I had 
sunk under a weight of temptation and debt; chance 
had brought me to that Court for relief; blood could 
not be had out of a stone. 

Mr. Ledger knew that this last common-place 



222 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

never failed in its effect upon the judge. There is 
something so simple, yet conclusive about it. Blood 
could not be had out of a stone. What a world of 
argument and mental exertion this axiom saved ! 
It was not inscribed as the regulating maxim over 
the facade of the Court ; but the judge had it always 
in his mind, always before his eyes, always ringing 
in his ears, and every judgment that he gave was 
governed by it. 

My wine creditor attempted a feeble opposition ; 
but the inferior quality of his wines, and the exor- 
bitant prices charged for them, were properly placed 
before the judge, and that tradesman received a 
severe judicial rebuke for attempting to ruin the 
constitutions of young men, by selling them a 
wretched, poisonous, fiery port, at five pounds the 
dozen. 

The accommodation-bill holder next made an 
attempt at opposition, much damaged by the ill- 
success of his companion, the wine-merchant. The 
first question that he was asked from the bench was, 
what were his rates of discount? His reply was, 
that they varied according to circumstances. This 
answer was not satisfactory. What were his average 
charges? What were his charges in this particular 
instance ? Sixty per cent, (the judge was indignant) ; 
that is, sixty per cent, per annum. He was called 
a usurer ; a discounting vampire, sucking the blood 
of the unwary and inexperienced ; he was not allowed 



WHITE WASHERTON. 223 

to explain that, notwithstanding his high rate of 
interest, he was a loser of several thousand pounds ; 
he had no right to stand in a court, the judge of 
which could never allow himself to listen to any man 
who exacted sixty per cent. 

I passed gently and smoothly though the painless 
ordeal. It was, however, sufficiently trying to keep 
up a wholesome excitement in the nervous system. 
As I shook hands, a free man, with Mr. Erasmus 
Ledger, before stepping into the carriage which 
drove me to the railway station, I whispered in his 
ear that I hoped it would soon become as fashionable 
to visit White Washerton for the Benefit of the Act, 
as it used to be to visit Cheltenham for the benefit 
of the waters. 



224 



BUYING IN THE CHEAPEST MARKET. 



I was born and nourished under the wing of political 
economy : not the theory, but the science reduced 
to practice. I have known many men in my time 
whose principles were without a flaw that the keenest 
logician could detect — who had Smith, Bentham, 
Mill, supply, and demand, at their fingers' ends — who 
could discourse most eloquent music about markets, 
population, capital, rent, profits, but who in them- 
selves were imprudent members of society, impro- 
vident centres of enormous families, borrowers of 
money at usurious interest, and strugglers up to 
their necks in seas of debt. My principles may not 
have been as sound, my reasoning powers not as 
perfect as those of my friends, but I floated harm- 
lessly over the ocean of debt — I was a lender, and 
not a borrower of money at usurious interest, and I 
did not enter upon a matrimonial engagement until 
I had carefully examined the ratio which capital at 
that period bore to population. 

One of the earliest pieces of practical wisdom 
drawn from the science of political economy, and in- 
stilled into me by a thoughtful and far-seeing parent, 
was the well-known maxim about buying in the 



BUYING IN THE CHEAPEST MARKET. 225 

cheapest market. I say well-known, but I am sorry 
to have also to state, that it is better known than 
trusted. Of all who hear it, and comprehend what it 
means, how many have the moral courage and in- 
dustry to act up to it ? Who amongst those who 
have the ability to find, will take the trouble to find 
the cheapest market ? I would address my present 
observations to persons about to marry ; but I know 
that it is useless to do so. They are too young, too 
ill taught, too gushing, too generous, too believing, 
too romantic, too imprudent, too much wanting in 
that cold but very valuable quality of calculation to 
listen to my words, and to benefit by the utterances 
of my experience. I turn from them with hopeless 
contempt to that other class comprised under the 
general title of parents and guardians ; people who, 
if they have not learned wisdom, have at least lived 
long enough to test the emptiness of the wild romance 
of life. 

When the preliminaries for my wedding were 
fixed, the first necessity of my position was to furnish 
a house ; and the first duty of my position was to find 
the cheapest market for doing so. This important 
undertaking rarely falls to the lot of a man more than 
once in the course of his natural life, and it is incum- 
bent upon him, therefore, to be careful how he per- 
forms it. There are two modes of setting about the 
task which naturally suggest themselves to the minds 
of the unthinking. The first is to contract with a 

Q 



226 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

fashionable upholsterer, who will supply all the regu- 
lar elegancies of life, give you no trouble about selec- 
tion, even in the number and subjects of the volumes 
for your library, and by the time you find you have 
got everything together very pretty and correct, like 
some thousands of your neighbours in the same posi- 
tion in society, he will send in a heavy bill, which 
you will duly pay, as your neighbours have done 
before you. 

The second mode of furnishing a house is the one 
usually considered economical, and is performed by 
attending sales and depots for second-hand furniture, 
in the hope of finding bargains. People buy at such 
places articles of inferior workmanship, manufactured 
expressly for the peculiar market, showy to the eye, 
weak in structure, with every fault carefully varnished 
over. They are proud of their purchases for a few 
weeks — after which time the articles disappear, and 
the song of triumph is heard no more. 

I need scarcely say, that neither of these plans 
was my plan. I had a certain sum of money at my 
disposal, and I knew that amongst the tradesmen to 
whom I must apply for the articles I required, there 
must be a large number to whom that money would 
' be more than ordinarily welcome. I knew that in 
the ranks of trade there is always a large number of 
shopkeepers struggling to maintain a position without 
capital— -embarrassed with writs, judges' orders, bills 
of sale, and county court judgments, and exposed to 



BUYING IN THE CHEAPEST MARKET. 227 

all the temptations which such a state of things must 
necessarily produce. The first step was to discover 
the names and addresses of these people : possessing 
which, I should then be on the high road to the 
cheapest market. 

In the City of London, conducted by a gentleman 
of the name of Perry, is an organization established, 
I believe, for the protection of trade, called the 
Bankrupt and Insolvent Registry Office. One part 
of Mr. Perry's system is to send to subscribers of a 
small annual sum a printed list, about once each 
week, of the names and addresses of all persons whose 
trading difficulties have compelled them to give either 
a judge's order, a bill of sale, or to sign a county 
court judgment. The date of the execution of these 
instruments is carefully given, and every information 
that will enable you to form a judgment as to the 
pecuniary position and struggles of a large number 
of the traders of the country. I became a subscriber 
to Mr. Perry's office, and received my list every 
week, which told me all, and more than I required 
to know. In about two months, with a little trouble 
and diplomatic skill, aided by the all-powerful money 
that I had at my command — I furnished a large 
house from top to bottom in a style far above the 
average, and at less than one-fourth of the usual cost. 
A couple of examples will explain sufficiently how this 
was done. 

Looking down my Trade Protection List one 



228 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

morning carelessly, over the breakfast table, my eye 
rested, amongst other things, upon the following 
record of commercial distress : 

"Judge's Oedees. 

" Enoch Baxter, Cabinet-maker, 58, Great Carcass Street, Sussex 
Town. Judge's Order for £22 to Robert Dunham and Co. ; dated 
April 14th, 1857." 

After breakfast, I walked out, and a Sussex Town 
omnibus passing me at the moment, I took my place 
outside, and in half an hour's time I found myself 
walking leisurely up Great Carcass Street. I stopped 
before the window of number fifty- eight, a small un- 
pretending shop, with no appearance of abundance 
in the interior, and no appearance of scarcity. There 
was a small display of fire-screens, couches, card- 
tables, easy-chairs, loo-tables, and a splendid marble- 
topped sideboard, which particularly struck my taste, 
and which I have now in my possession, placed in the 
post of honour in my luxurious dining-room. I opened 
the door which clicked a small bell, and entered the 
shop, when I was immediately waited upon by a tall, 
quiet-looking, timid man, who turned out to be the 
proprietor, Mr. Enoch Baxter. It is impossible for me 
to explain why I did so, but at the moment when he 
advanced towards me, by a kind of impulse, I rattled 
loudly some loose gold that I had in my trousers' 
pocket, and the sound seemed to have an electrical 
effect upon Mr. Baxter's nerv r es. I asked to look at 
his Post Office London Directory, and as he informed 



BUYING IN THE CHEAPEST MARKET. 229 

me that he did not possess one, I observed his coun- 
tenance assume a desponding expression of extreme 
disappointment. I asked the price of a music-stool, 
and his face brightened instantly with the hopeful 
expectation of a customer. These little surface indica- 
tions taught me that Mr. Baxter was an easily- 
managed, impressible man, and I proceeded to 
manage him accordingly. 

"Noble piece of furniture," I observed, alluding 
to the marble-topped sideboard. 

" Yes, sir/' he replied quickly, with great anima- 
tion, " one of the most finished things we ever turned 
out, and only sixty guineas." 

"Ah," I returned in a desponding tone, "such 
sums are rarely spent upon single articles of furniture 
now, especially in these days of commercial distress." 
The proprietor gave vent to a heavy sigh. 

" I should think," I continued in a sympathising 
tone, " that the neighbourhood you find yourself in 
is scarcely adapted to the class of articles you seem 
to produce?" 

"It is not, sir," replied the proprietor; "there is 
no local gentry, and our trade is cut up by the cheap, 
advertising, rubbish shops in other parts of the town." 

"Walnut?" I inquired, again directing my at- 
tention to the sideboard. 

" No, sir ; pollard oak." 

" Several large failures in the City again this morn- 
ing," I remarked, " and the Bank rate of discount I 



230 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

am told, is likely to go up to twelve per cent." The 
gold, somehow, again clinked in my pocket. 

" Where will it all end?" sighed the proprietor. 

"Where?" I responded walking round the 
sideboard. 

u Sir," said the proprietor, in an almost affec- 
tionate manner, u if you would really like that splendid 
article, I will knock off ten guineas, and put it in to 
you at fifty." 

"These things," I replied, "are all regulated by 
the law of supply and demand, and the state of 
the money-market; if I offered you twenty-two 
pounds " 

The mention of that peculiar sum (the amount 
of the judge's order) seemed to strike him with a 
sudden pang ; and I think he staggered as he gasped 
out faintly — 

il No, sir, no ; it would not pay the cost of the 
raw material." 

The time, I considered, had now arrived for me 
to take the decisive step. I calmly took one of my 
address- cards from my pocket-book, and wrote upon 
it my maximum amount, five-and- twenty pounds. 

" There/' said I, as I placed it in the open hand 
of the hesitating proprietor, " five-and-twenty pounds, 
send the article home to that address, and there is 
your money, cash on delivery." 

Late at night I found the sideboard standing in 
my dining-room, and a receipt for twenty-five 



BUYING IN THE CHEAPEST MARKET. 231 

pounds lying on the table, signed in a somewhat 
tremulous hand, "Enoch Baxter." 

Encouraged by my success with the embarrassed 
cabinet-maker, I next experimented upon a piano- 
forte merchant, who I found from my list was suffer- 
ing from a county court judgment for fifteen pounds 
eighteen shillings. He was a common, cunning- 
looking man, with a good deal of the mechanic in 
his appearance ; and he gave me the idea of a work- 
ing carpenter, dressed in a pianoforte -tuner's clothes- 
He was fetched, I presume, from a public-house to 
attend upon me; for he came in, smelling very 
strongly of tobacco-smoke. 

There was an instrument, noble in exterior, with 
all the latest improvements, delicacy of touch, metallic 
sounding-board, etc., upon which I fixed my atten- 
tion, while the proprietor rattled over the keys with 
short, thick, grubby fingers, performing one of those 
brilliant flourishes peculiar to people who undertake 
to exhibit the capabilities of a piano for the purpose 
of effecting a sale. 

I quietly inquired the price. 

u Well, sir," said he, discontinuing his harmony, 
and looking up at me with his small, sharp eyes, " we 
couldn't make a hinstrument of that kind to horder 
under seventy pund ; but we bought it on the quiet 
from a man who shut up his shop and bolted to Hos- 
tralia, and we can say fifty pund for it." 

I saw the kind of man I had to deal with, 



232 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

and I did not indulge in any unnecessary nego- 
tiation. 

" Eighteen pounds/' I said, after examining the 
instrument, " is what I can give for that piano." 

" Make more for firewood," returned the pro- 
prietor, shortly, closing the lid of the case. 

" That's my card," I replied, giving him my 
address, "eighteen pounds; at home any evening 
this week after eight." 

I was right in my calculations. The next night, 
about half-past ten, I received a visit from the piano- 
forte merchant, who had a cart with the instrument 
waiting at the door. 

"Say twenty pund," said he, "and Fm your 
man." 

" You have my bidding," I replied, with dignity. 

" You warn't born yesterday," he returned, with 
a wink ; and, coming closer to me, in a confidential 
manner, he continued, "keep it dark, you know; 
keep it dark." 

Whether he paid off the county court judgment 
with the money I cannot tell, but I saw his name in 
the list of bankrupts a few weeks after this transac- 
tion; and at the examination before the commis- 
sioner, there was a judicial rebuke about reckless 
trading and making away with stock, which I, of 
course, could not help, as I was only carrying out 
the law of supply and demand, and acting upon the 
maxim of buying in the cheapest market. 



233 



i TWENTY SHILLINGS IN THE POUND. 



The firm of Petty, Larceny, and Co., the great ha- 
berdashers, is a monument of remarkable trading 
skill. It has been established more than a century. 
Old Petty retired with a colossal fortune, and young 
Petty, the old Petty of the present firm, was mem- 
ber of Parliament for a cotton district. Some of the 
Larcenies have been at the bar, and one is a very high 
dignitary in the Church, while he who stands in the 
place of the old original Larceny, and manages the 
business, has the reputation of being one of the 
smartest traders in the City of London. The first 
stone of their prosperity was laid by the purchase of 
job-lots, or goods sold at a sacrifice. They found a 
mine of wealth under their feet, and they did not 
neglect to work it. They got a double reputation : 
one for always being ready with cash for goods to any 
extent, the other for always selling goods thirty per 
cent, under the market-price. They always paid 
twenty shillings in the pound, but it was for forty 
shillings' worth of goods, and that, my simple friend, 
is a very different thing from buying forty shillings 5 
worth of goods, and paying twenty shillings for them. 
In the first instance, you are a keen trader, buying 



234 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

at a discount of fifty per cent. ; in the second, you 
are a worthless, broken scamp, paying ten shillings 
in the pound. You, who possess a mathematical 
head, cannot probably find much difference in the 
two things, but act upon your conviction, and see the 
result. You, as the payer of the despised ten shil- 
lings in the pound, the payer of one pound for two, 
shall enter one of our palatial receptacles of mer- 
chandise in company with Mr. Larceny, the payer of 
twenty shillings in the pound, the buyer of two 
pounds for one. Not an assistant in the place, not 
a head of a department, but what will be at once at 
the humble service of Mr. Larceny, ready to throw 
at his feet the rich cashmeres of India, the soft sables 
of the North, the costly fabrics of the South, per- 
fumes of Araby the blest, jasper, onyx, and all pre- 
cious stones. Let him take them at his own price, 
and upon his own terms. Now comes your turn, my 
simple friend, and the rich, fall stream of commerce 
does not flow so freely at your feet. Will you be 
kind enough to give your name ? They cannot find 
exactly what you want, although your desires are not 
extravagant. You fancy you heard your name going 
down a pipe, and you were right. Will you have the 
goodness to step down to the counting-house? You 
step down, and see a managing clerk. Another time 
they will be most happy, etc. You have learnt the dif- 
ference, my simple friend, between paying ten shillings 
for a pound, and buying a pound for ten shillings. 



TWENTY SHILLINGS IN THE POUND. 235 

Messrs. Petty, Larceny, and Co. thrive apace, and 
suck up in their vortex many spiritless businesses of 
the same kind in the neighbourhood. They buy up 
a pile of buildings ; they cover with their warehouses 
half a street. Sometimes it happens in the course 
of trade that complications arise between principal 
and agent, consignor and consignee, buyer and sel- 
ler ; the money-market is tight, cash is scarce, and a 
few thousand pounds' worth of goods is sold in con- 
sequence, at a sacrifice much more alarming than 
usual. What makes matters worse is, that Messrs. 
Petty, Larceny's cheque — which though dishonour- 
able was never dishonoured — does not find its way 
to the rightful owner, the agent employed in the 
matter having put a finish to dishonest proceedings 
by an act of embezzlement. This brings the trans- 
action into open court, and some virtuous counsel, 
whose wholesome indignation has been paid for as 
per brief delivered, does not hesitate to stigmatise 
the conduct of Messrs. Petty, Larceny, and Co. as 
immoral and dishonest ; to call a sacrifice a down- 
right robbery; job-lots nothing but stolen goods, 
and to say that the receiver is as bad as the thief. 
Poor fellow ! he knows when he utters the last senti- 
ment, that his law is the reverse of sound, and that 
he is the veriest stump-orator that ever stood in a 
Court of Justice. Perhaps he is thinking of some 
miserable fence, or marine-store dealer, whose limited 
capital, want of enterprise, and wretched habitation, 



236 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

under the constant surveillance of the police, render 
him in the eyes of the law a receiver in every respect 
as bad as the thief; but the splendid pile of ware- 
houses that bears the name of Messrs. Petty, Lar- 
ceny, and Co. can never be the receptacle of any 
goods, but what have been bought in a respectable 
manner, and under the laws of supply and demand. 
When Mr. Larceny leaves his business, about five in 
the afternoon, the policeman on the beat runs to open 
the door of his carriage, which he certainly would 
not do for a man that was obnoxious to the law. 

Some people there may be, who gossip about the 
story in the City, and, like good members of society 
as they are, profess a moral repugnance to any man 
who stoops to make money by such dishonest prac- 
tices ; but their words lose something of their weight 
when we find them, in a few days afterwards, in Mr. 
Larceny's private counting-house, with a piece of 
coloured paper in their hands, evidently torn from a 
banker's cheque-book. Sundry old ladies and highly 
respectable mothers of families profess to be greatly 
shocked when they read the account in the news- 
papers, and exclaim, " What an immoral place Messrs. 
Petty, Larceny's shop must be for the young men !" 
But if we lounge towards the shop in question, about 
three o'clock on a July afternoon, we shall find the 
same ladies in great force, seated on the short-backed 
chairs, and asking the attendants to shew them 
" some of those stolen — ahem, that is, remarkably 



TWENTY SHILLINGS IN THE POUND. 237 

cheap goods that they have to sell." When Mr. 
Larceny goes into the markets on the next occasion, 
his friends cluster round him more attentive than 
ever, probably from joy that so dear a friend has not 
been rudely snatched from them. Society does not 
turn its back upon Mr. Larceny ; far from it, its doors 
are always open to any man who can send his own 
footman to knock at them. Prisons* of all kinds, 
Houses of Correction, Silent Systems, Penal Ser- 
vitudes, Hulks, Queen's Benches, Old Baileys, 
Bankruptcy Courts, and lastly, Workhouses, were 
never built or organised for men like Mr. Larceny. 
It is the fools who suffer, while the rogues thrive. 

Third-class bankrupts, with certificates suspended 
for two years, with protection refused for six months; 
transported felons and oakum-pickers of various de- 
grees, become what they are, that Larceny House 
may have its much-admired stone facade, designed 
by Bubble Walling, Esq., F.S.A., that Mr. Larceny's 
mansion in Huckaback Square may be adorned with 
the latest Rubenses, Baffaelles, and Correggios, and 
that Larceny Park, Richmond, Surrey, may be one 
of the great landscape features of the county. 

Such is the brazen image of twenty shillings in 
the pound, before which men fall down and worship. 
If auy one doubts how much better it is to sin than 
to be sinned against, let him look at a commercial 
adventurer of a different stamp. 

We have heard a good deal of the fraudulent 



238 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

debtor. We know his picture pretty well by this 
time. He never keeps a cash-book. He makes away 
with stock in a mysterious manner, and his furni- 
ture is always settled on his wife. He has been in- 
solvent once — a bankrupt once, and he has com- 
pounded with his creditors several times. He is, of 
course, a great scamp, because — he cannot pay 
twenty shillings in the pound. But has ever any one 
looked calmly and dispassionately into his conduct, 
to see whether there is any substratum of honesty 
underlying the surface of his character ? Has any- 
one ever tried to discover the original character of 
his misfortunes — I beg pardon, his rogueries ? Are 
his creditors aware, when they are so loud in their 
complaints against him, that in many cases his nu- 
merous failures spring out of the one original insol- 
vency ; because he was weak and considerate enough 
to grant fraudulent preferences and renew old debts ? 
Are they aware that they have been supplying him 
with goods and money, for many years, at an enor- 
mous profit and interest that act as an insurance 
against risk, and make ten shillings in the pound a 
remunerative dividend ? I am afraid not. He may 
walk about in a leaky shoe and a battered hat, but 
he is always assumed to have a snug competency put 
on one side in a quiet way. If he is really fraudu- 
lent, the law has provided for his punishment in a 
very peculiar manner. He goes before a Bankruptcy 
Commissioner With a balance-sheet, and a variety of 



TWENTY SHILLINGS IN THE POUND. 239 

accounts which, as far as totals are concerned, are 
made to agree with each other with wonderful accu- 
racy; and the said commissioner, knowing nothing 
of figures, and ascertaining from the official assig- 
nee, that he has not been too fraudulent to provide 
for the expenses of the court, does not see any good 
that can arise to the estate from further delay, and 
grants a common certificate or licence to trade, as a 
matter of course. If, on the other hand, he is not 
fraudulent but unfortunate, and flies to the sanctuary 
of the court, under the pressure of unavoidable loss and 
misfortune, having allowed the commercial whirlwind 
to overtake him before providing payment for the 
shelter as the act directs, he will find surly officials, 
a severe Draconian judge, and, in all probability, a 
suspension of certificate. Woe upon him, if at any 
time, under the influence of pressure, a sense of ho- 
nour, or for increased facilities of trade, he has given 
what the law calls a fraudulent preference; he will then 
find to his cost how much more culpable it is in the 
eye of j ustice to give than to receive. He will suffer for 
his ill-advised, though well-intentioned act, while the 
receiver of the benefit — the fraudulent creditor — will 
walk away respected and unscathed in all the immacu- 
late invulnerability of twenty shillings in the pound. 

The fraudulent creditor is a person that does 
not come so prominently before us ; he does not stink 
in the nostrils of commerce, for his cheques are 
always paid, and he never had a bill sent back in his 



240 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

life. He is an oily man, who has made many bad 
debts during his commercial life, and who always 
seems to extract nourishment from them. He has 
generally been very badly treated by the fraudulent 
debtor, but while the latter has scarcely a bed to lie 
down upon, the fraudulent creditor manages to keep 
a good balance at his banker's. He seldom attends, 
and will never take the chair at a meeting of credi- 
tors. When an arrangement is proposed, he always 
declines, at present, to come in. He has scruples and 
objections, and he takes time to consider. He likes 
to be treated with individually. God forbid that he 
should be the means of carrying the affair to the 
Bankruptcy Court, and injuring others; but he does 
not think that there has been a fair statement ren- 
dered, and he would rather lose the whole of his 
debt — ill as he can afford it — than accept a dividend 
less than the estate ought to pay. He holds out 
firmly, and when others get ten shillings, he gets 
fifteen; when others get fifteen, he gets twenty. 
Failing this, he stands over until the debtor begins 
trade again, and then he advances his claim upon the 
new estate, to the injury of the new creditors. He is 
one of the most obstructive and dishonest men in 
trade, and yet who would refuse his acceptance for 
five thousand pounds ? It may be that the twenty 
shillings in the pound, with which the bill will be 
paid, will be very dirty shillings — shillings that ought 
to have been in the pockets of other people, but they 



TWENTY SHILLINGS IN THE POUND. 241 

fulfil the commercial requirements as to weight, and 
the code of trading morality exacts no other con- 
dition. 

If I have shocked the political economist by ex- 
hibiting any irreverence for the laws which regulate 
the operations of commerce, the theory of trade, ex- 
change, markets, supply and demand, I humbly apo- 
logise. My purpose was not to question the dogmas 
of economical science, but to put my finger upon 
some of the moral blots in commerce, and to ask 
that those who are always crying out aloud for puri- 
fication, should not strain at a bankrupt gnat, and 
swallow a felonious camel. 



242 



THE AFFLICTED DUKE OF SPINDLES. 



Know thyself; examine thyself; keep a strict watch 
over thyself; for thy body is a frail machine that will 
soon fall to pieces, if not carefully preserved. From 
the head downwards, or the feet upwards, thou art 
subject to disease, deformity, and decay. Thy hair 
will drop off, — will change colour, — will turn grey. 
Thy teeth will become unsightly, black, hollow, ach- 
ing. Thy back will become round shouldered, and 
thy elbows will stick outwards instead of inwards. 
Thy hands will become coarse, red, short, thick ; thy 
nails grubby. Thy stomach will protrude beyond the 
natural space allotted to man, and thy waist will 
assume unwieldy dimensions. Thy legs, unable to 
support unyieldingly the superincumbent weight, will 
bow out at the calves, or bend inwards at the knees. 
Thy feet will become painfully fruitful in corns and 
bunions, and thy face at one extremity of thy miser- 
able body will fall into graceless contortions in sym- 
pathy with the pain which thou art suffering at the 
other extremity. Thy complexion will lose its bril- 
liant purity under sun, and rain, and hail, and snow, 
and frost, and those darting eyes of which thou art 
so justly — but, alas ! so vainly — proud, will become, 
under the combined effects of dust and east wind, a 



THE AFFLICTED DUKE OF SPINDLES. 243 

couple of weak and watery organs, encompassed by a 
rim of inflammatory cuticle. As to thy heart, thy 
liver, and all the other sacred mysteries ever closely 
hidden within the perishable casket, are they not 
more delicate and wonderful in their silent retire- 
ment — more prone to suffer derangement and decay 
— than those ruder portions of the same weak ma- 
chine, whose place it is to come in immediate contact 
with the rough elements of the outer world ? 

Such were my thoughts, a curious mixture of the 
styles of philosophical reflection peculiar to the pul- 
pit and the advertising nostrum vendor, in the early 
part of a dull, melancholy October day. I was that 
Pariah of society, the man about city and town, 
when city and town were nothing but a lifeless 
desert. The hard necessities of the law required 
my presence for an uncertain period to sign deeds, 
and perform other acts connected with the con- 
veyance of a large business property, and I was 
chained by this legal spell within sight and call of 
Mr. Proviso, the lawyer, at a period of the year 
when every other living creature of my class was 
disporting himself upon mountain and river, lake and 
sandy beach. I wandered moodily up the once gay 
and busy thoroughfares, now gay and busy no longer 
with the rolling carriages and the brilliant members 
of the promenade. I passed my once comfortable, 
exclusive tavern, and found it in the hands of brick- 
lay ers' labourers, with huge white- washing ladders 



244 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

standing in the principal rooms, and planks project- 
ing from the open windows into the street. I looked 
in the newspapers for topics of interest, and found 
them not. I wandered with a strange fascination to- 
wards those large, dark, silent houses, whose hospit- 
able doors had once been open to me at all hours of 
the day. I saw, for one fleeting moment, the beam- 
ing face of a young male friend within the hooded 
recesses of a Hansom cab. I rushed forward to stay 
his progress, but my eye quickly detected the too ex- 
pressive rug and portmanteau upon the top under the 
driver's elbows, and I drew back, suffering the vehicle 
to go unmolested on its joyous way, leaving me in a 
solitude more depressing than ever. Listless and 
aimless, as I sauntered up one dull street and down 
another, I became painfully conscious, perhaps for 
he first time, of my very limited power of self-de- 
pendence. I began to commune with myself, and 
see how helpless and wretched a thing I was, when 
society was suddenly and completely taken from me. 
I began to know myself, and I did not appear to im- 
prove upon acquaintance. The more I carried on 
this self-examination, the more contemptible did I 
appear in my own eyes. For years I had gone pla- 
cidly on in ignorance of my mental and moral weak- 
ness; what if my physical condition had been silently 
deteriorating ? This idea led me into the reflections 
before recorded, and partly from fear, partly from 
curiosity, and partly for occupation, I resolved to get 



THE AFFLICTED DUKE OF SPINDLES. 245 

as much information about myself as talent could 
furnish and money purchase. 

The first step that I took with the view of know- 
ing myself, was to ring at the door of an eminent 
chiropodist. He was within, of course, as it was his 
business to be. I was conducted by a footman in a 
splendid livery, up a noble staircase into a drawing- 
room, furnished with all — and a little more of — the 
glass and satin that taste has ordained to be ne- 
cessary for the proper fitting up of such an apart- 
ment. A luxurious easy- chair was placed for me 
near the table in the centre of the room, and I was 
mildly and deferentially told that the professor would 
be with me in a few minutes. In the meantime I 
was left to contemplate his portraits as he appeared 
while extracting the corns of three crowned heads — 
or rather six crowned feet — of Europe, and those of 
an Eastern monarch, who, from his undoubted Arab 
origin, ought never to have been troubled with shoes, 
much less with corns. When these works of art had 
had their proper destined effect upon my mind, jthe 
professor — a coarse, fat man — entered, arrayed in a 
crimson velvet dressing-gown, with a smoking-cap to 
match. I rose to greet him, but he bounded forward 
with an air of what was meant to be charming amia- 
bility and consideration for my bodily sufferings, and 
begged that I would on no account disturb myself. 

"My dear sir/' he began, "I have seen too many 
cases of your kind not to know how extremely grate- 



246 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

ful a little rest must be. Allow me to take off your 
boots and socks." 

He placed a small black velvet cushion for me to 
rest my feet upon, and, in a few seconds, those sup- 
posed suffering members were exposed to his view. 

"Ah," he exclaimed, "the very thing I expected; 
exactly the same as the young Duke of Spindles, who 
was here the other day ! Do you know his grace ?" 

I replied that I did not. 

" A very affable young nobleman," he continued, 
pinching my toes with his fore-finger and thumb, 
" extraordinarily so, when we consider -what his grace 
must have suffered with his feet before his grace came 
to me. I think, sir, that I extracted from his grace's 
right foot, alone, in a single morning, no less than 
live and forty corns of different degrees of magni- 
tude!" 

I exhibited a polite degree of astonishment. 

" Yes, sir," he resumed, " and I did more than 
that. I cured his grace of one of the most awful 
bunions that has ever come under my notice during 
a long and active professional career. ' Cure me of 
that bunion/ said his grace, ' and you will earn my 
everlasting gratitude. It embitters my youth, it 
darkens the festive board, it gnaws me like a vul- 
ture, it comes between me and the legitimate plea- 
sures of the ball-room, which I am so well fitted by 
age, appearance, and position to enjoy/ I put out 
my talent, sir, and his grace w r ent away another man. 



THE AFFLICTED DUKE OF SPINDLES. 247 

The hundred guineas that his grace presented me 
with were soon spent, but the diamond-ring that he 
gave me I shall preserve and wear, by his grace's de- 
sire, to the last day of my life." 

He displayed a ring. 

" His grace must have been peculiarly afflicted," 
I observed. 

" Not at all, sir ; not at all. In fact, between 
ourselves, corns and bunions are the great curse of 
our aristocracy. Not one of that illustrious body is 
free from them, male or female. It is an infallible 
sign of blood." 

While this conversation, or rather broken mono- 
logy was going on, the manipulation of my feet con- 
tinued, and small pea-looking lumps of some drab 
material were, from time to time, placed upon a sil- 
ver salver standing on the table. 

"You must be a person of extraordinary forti- 
tude," he resumed, "to have endured what you must 
have endured, for so long a period. Are you aware 
that I have already extracted thirty-two corns from 
your feet ? " 

I was not aware of the fact. 

' f This," he observed, taking one of the peas from 
the salver, "is what causes the pain in the foot. It 
is the seed, or needle of the corn, which, being pres- 
sed down by the boot, enters that portion of the flesh 
which is not benumbed or hardened, and produces 
that sharp, pricking pain, popularly known as 'shoot- 
ing.' " 



248 UNDER' BOW BELLS. 

The professor rose with a look of triumphant sa- 
tisfaction, and I replaced my socks and boots. 

" There/' he exclaimed, as I stood np once more, 
" you feel another man now, and. will walk down- 
stairs very differently from the way in which you 
walked up them/'' 

I certainly did walk away differently, for I was 
thirty-two pounds lighter. Each corn or pea was 
charged a sovereign, and thirty-two pounds was the 
cost of my first lesson in the difficult art of knowing 
myself. 

The next place that I found myself in was the 
depot for the sale of the celebrated boot ; where I 
must have wandered, though unconsciously, thinking 
of my feet. I was received by the master of the shop 
with tenderness almost approaching to affection, and 
I marvelled much that any mere money-payment 
could purchase so much real and unaffected kind- 
ness. My feet were handled with considerate care, 
and their measure was taken as if they had been 
made of the most delicate glass. 

"Dear, dear/' exclaimed the proprietor and in- 
ventor — a short, puffy man, whose face was now very 
red from his stooping position — ' ' you ought to have 
come to me before ; if you had gone another month, 
sir, under the old system of boots — only another 
month, sir, you would have been a hopeless crip- 
ple ! " 

" Indeed/' I replied. 



THE AFFLICTED DUKE OF SPINDLES. 249 

1 c It was only the other day that the young Duke 
of Spindles " 

" I beg your pardon," I interrupted, <c what 
name?" 

"The young Duke of Spindles/' he returned. 
" It was only the other day that he came to me in 
such a condition, that if I had not known my busi- 
ness, sir, his grace would have hobbled on crutches 
for the remainder of his life." 

' c Was he grateful ? " I inquired. 

" Sir," said the proprietor and inventor rather 
pompously, " his grace presented me with that letter 
of acknowledgment hanging over your head, and this 
diamond ring, which he begged me to wear for his 
sake." 

As I paid my money — no inconsiderable sum — 
and left the place, my benefactor begged that I 
would not walk too much for the next month, and 
that I would take a bran foot-bath at least three 
times a- week. I had learned and paid for lesson 
number two, and, in trying to know myself, I was 
beginning to understand my neighbours. 

I next found myself in the studio of a photogra- 
phic artist, whose portraits were celebrated for their 
happy fidelity. He prided himself on being a re- 
markably plain-speaking man — a man who never 
flattered anyone, no matter what his rank and influ- 
ence might be. After spending some time in arrang- 
ing my posture, he expressed his dissatisfaction with 
me in these terms : 



250 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

" Your face, sir, is quite out of drawing ; your 
nose inclines considerably to the left side; and,, to 
make matters worse, your right cheek is half as large 
again as the left." 

" You're not very compliment ary," I replied. 

" Sir/' said he, " I always give my visitors a can- 
did opinion. It was only the other day that I nearly 
offended the young Duke of Spindles -" 

« The Duke of ?" 

" Spindles, sir. The Duke of Spindles was not 
offended, sir, by the bluntness of my remarks, in 
telling him that if his head was only as well-propor- 
tioned as his legs and feet, he would have been a 
perfect Apollo Belvidere. His grace, however, after 
a little while, had the good sense to admit the justice 
of my criticism, and he is now one of the firmest 
patrons that I have." 

This was another stage gained in self-knowledge. 
The next step carried me to the shop of an artist 
celebrated for his skill in adorning the human frame 
with clothes. 

" May I inquire," asked the artist, mildly, ( ' who 
made your last garments?" 

" Certainly," I replied, and I gave him the re- 
quired information. 

" I thought so," he returned, addressing himself 
to a prim man who was cutting out cloth behind a 
counter ; " some more of their failures, Jenkins ! u 

" Yes, sir," was the mechanical response. 



THE AFFLICTED DUKE OF SPINDLES. 251 

" Scarcely a day passes, sir," lie said, turning to 
me, " but what I have a customer from that quarter. 
My best patron — the young Duke of " {" Spin- 
dles/-' I could not help interpolating) — " came to me 
in that way, didn't he, Jenkins ?" 

" Yes, sir/* replied the prim cutter. 

" We must pad your coat considerably behind," 
resumed the master artist; "for, although you may 
not be aware of it, your shoulder blades are very 
prominent; so much so as almost to reach a de- 
formity, which it is our business to hide. As you 
have a decided tendency to corpulence, your waist- 
coats must be single-breasted, and your trowsers 
must be made full, to conceal a little inclination 
inwards at the knees. But" (he continued, rising 
into enthusiasm with his subject), "as I said to his 
grace the young Duke of Spindles, the other day, 
if it was not for these little deflections of the human 
frame, where would be our Art ? We might as well, 
sir, be common slop- sellers ! " 

Still endeavouring to acquire the power of know- 
ing myself, another half-hour found me closeted with 
the renowned Doctor Grumpus, who had evidently 
formed himself on the traditional model of the 
equally renowned Doctor Abernethy. The doctor 
— who was the consulting physician of several life 
assurance offices — in addition to his gruffness, had 
acquired a habit of treating patients as if they were 
under an examination for a policy. 



252 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

"Now, sir!" said he, "what's the matter with 
you ? Pork chops ?" 

I explained to him briefly the object of my visit, 
which was to gain a general knowledge of my health 
and bodily prospects. 

" Was your father ever mad ?" he inquired. 

"'Never." 

"Mother?" 

" Never." 

"Both dead?" 

" Both." 

"Age?" 

" Between fifty and sixty." 

"Both?" 

"Both." 

" Good ! Had the measles ?" 

"Yes." 

" Come here !" 

I went as requested, and received a sharp punch in 
the stomach from the fist of the doctor, whose head 
was immediately stuck against my waistband, lis- 
tening, as it appeared to me, to the ticking of my 
watch. 

" Breathe !" he said, and I obeyed. 

"You'll do," he continued, "if you don't drink 
too much. Five guineas ! — Come in." 

Although I had heard no sound, a footman entered, 
in obedience to the last summons, and announced 
the young Duke of Spindles. 



THE AFFLICTED DUKE OF SPINDLES. 253 

"Back surgery/' replied the concise doctor. As 
I bowed myself out I saw no signs of a ducal pre- 
sence, although I looked curiously — and thus ended 
my fifth lesson. 

I next rang the bell at a door on which was a large 
brass plate with " Madame Dubois, epileuse," upon 
it in prominent characters. I was ushered into a 
room in many respects like the chiropodist's, where 
I was received by a middle-aged female, who desired 
me to take a seat while she prepared the necessary 
implements to extract my grey hairs. She com- 
menced her operations with two pairs of pincers. 

" Milor's hair was vara fine — vara charming — 
much like de air of de young Due de " 

" Don't mention his name. I know it already." 

"Monsieur?" 

"Spindles. Am I right?" 

" Parfaitement. Milor le young Due is just a 
leetle — a vara leetle — grey ; but he had taken it in 
time, and it would not spread — O no !" 

Half an hour passed in this way, at the end of 
which time some twenty hairs were displayed upon a 
white cloth on the table. Two were visibly grey, the 
others were said to be in a state of transition — dan- 
gerous companions, likely to corrupt the remainder 
of the flock if suffered to remain. I paid the fee 
cheerfully— three guineas and a half — and went direct 
to a barber's to pursue my investigations in the same 
direction. 



254 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

The barber's was not a vulgar barber's; not a 
place with a pole sticking out, and an old copy of a 
Sunday paper to amuse the customers, but an es- 
tablishment that had kept pace with the times, if it 
had not shot a-head of them. It was a series of 
saloons, replete with every luxury of the toilet ; ar- 
tists of rare manipulative skill ; baths of every kind, 
even warm sea-water baths. I placed myself before 
a pier-glass, and was immediately waited on by the 
leading man in the house, who prepared a sham- 
pooing mixture, not unlike the materials for a pan- 
cake. There were eggs, and rum and water, and a 
thing like a milking-pail, in which the composition 
was to drip as it ran off my head. When the wash- 
ing was finished, the usual remarks began on the 
part of my operator. 

" Hair is greyer than it ought to be, sir, for a 
gentleman of your age. Falling off a little at the 
top, too. You should try our warm sea-water baths. 
Did you ever try our pediluvium, fragrant vapour, 
and siesta to follow ?" 

"Never," I replied, "but as you recommend the 
warm sea-water baths, I'll try one." 

"Yes, sir; thank you, sir. Thomas!" (this was 
shouted down a pipe) "warm sea- water." 

I was conducted to a dark apartment in the base- 
ment — probably what Tvas once the cellar, now lighted 
with gas — and in the corner I observed a large trough 
filled with the invigorating spring. When I was 



THE AFFLICTED DUKE OF SPINDLES. 255 

thoroughly immersed, I was left to my reflections, 
and very melancholy they were. I compared my 
condition, confined in a dirty tank, in a gloomy coal- 
cellar, with that of my friends, who were taking their 
sea-water under the chalk cliffs, on the free, open, 
pebbly beach. I audibly cursed the delays of the 
law which kept me in town, and I became an ardent 
legal reformer from that hour, As these thoughts 
were passing through my mind, I became suddenly 
conscious of an intense feeling of disgust at my 
bath, and the whole truth at once dawned upon me, I 
was soaking in a mess of pot-liquor. Sea- water it was 
certainly, but it had been several days — perhaps 
weeks — in the wood, and several hours — perhaps 
days — in the boiler. Its whole history passed be- 
fore me ; its transfer to a cask on the coast of Kent 
or Sussex; its journey to London in the luggage- 
van of the railway ; its period of delay in the com- 
pany's store-houses; its jolting voyage in one of 
Pickford's vans; its second delay at the carrier's 
warehouses; finally, its delivery at the door of the 
hair-dresser. Ten legs of pork, stewed for six 
hours in ten gallons of water, would have made a 
bath as wholesome and inviting. I leaped with a 
shudder from the greasy pool, and lost no time in 
making my way to the upper apartments. I had 
spent the whole day, and nearly fifty pounds, in 
learning to know myself; and in the effort I had but 
extended my knowledge of a certain class of my 



256 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

fellow- creatures. As I passed through the saloons 
where the "pediluvium, fragant vapour, and siesta 
to follow" were administered, I heard the voice of 
one who was evidently indulging in these Eastern 
luxuries, crying aloud in a decided tone — evidently 
under the impression that there was something which 
the waiter had omitted to bring : 

' ' Now, then ! That siesta ! » 

Could that voice have belonged to the young, 
shadowy, afflicted Duke of Spindles ? 



257 



GOOD-WILL. 



I live in a free country ; I cannot be pressed into 
the Queen's service; I cannot be kept in prison 
more than twenty-four hours without a preliminary 
trial ; I am not the born thrall of any Cedric the 
Saxon ; I cannot be sold into slavery. Rule Britan- 
nia, Magna Charta, Habeas Corpus, and the Bill of 
Rights ! 

So much for my public liberty ; but how about 
my private freedom of action ? 

Between me and my country, the balance is pretty 
fairly struck. I pay my taxes, and I enjoy my pri- 
vileges ; but between me and a certain class of my 
fellow-creatures, called my neighbours, there is a 
long account to settle, in which I stand, not as a 
debtor, but as a creditor. "While I sit ruminating in 
the learned seclusion of my study, while I sit mas- 
ticating in the social communion of my dining- 
room, while I lounge in the elegant luxuriance of my 
drawing-room, or slumber in the comfortable silence 
of my bed-chamber, I am bought and sold; my 
wants, my fancies, my ailings, and weaknesses, are 
weighed, and measured, and hawked about the town 
to find a purchaser. I am not even the miserable 
shadow of a free agent. I live under Bow Bells, in a 



258 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

neighbourhood that is like a little village within the 
City. I am parcelled out amongst a baker, a tailor, a 
bootmaker, a butcher, a publican, a doctor, a green- 
grocer, a fishmonger, and a sweep. If there were 
but two of each, I would not complain, as that would 
secure me something like competition • but my street 
with its ramifications, notwithstanding the adjacent 
markets, is given up to the tender mercies of these 
small individual monopolists, and I am bound hand 
and foot with it. I see an " eligible business in this 
street with good-will," etc., advertised in the columns 
of the leading organ, and I feel a cold chill run 
through my frame, as if I was a South Carolina 
slave reading an account of his good qualities in a 
local newspaper : I am part of that good- will, myself 
and my family. Our capacity for consuming food 
is calculated to a loaf, a herring, a mutton-chop, a 
pint of beer, a cabbage, even to a single potato. My 
requirements in the way of garments, made or re- 
paired, are put upon paper, and made the basis of a 
selfish calculation. My sweep looks upon my chim- 
neys as his property, not mine, and gets sullen and 
discontented if he is not called in with periodical 
regularity. On one occasion, when a stupid cook 
tilted a pan of dripping on the fire, and set the whole 
flue in a blaze, this black and heartless scoundrel was 
heard to observe, "that it was a great pity, but it 
made good for trade." I am not sure that the chance 
of such a casualty happening, say once a-year, does 



GOOD-WILL. 259 

not enter into his calculations for obtaining a liveli- 
hood. 

The doctor, who, as a man of some education and 
refinement, ought to be free from such mercenary 
feelings, is, I am confident, even worse than the 
others. When I go out every morning to my busi- 
ness, looking a trifle paler than usual, this speculator 
upon human infirmities is glaring at me through 
the coloured bottles, weighing my symptoms, and 
gloating over the prospect of a patient. Although I 
do not hear him, I feel that he says to himself, in 
that horrid back-parlour, amongst the instruments, 
the grinning teeth, and the sickening smell of cam- 
phor : " When will those rude, healthy children at 
Number Twelve have the measles, like other 
children ?" 

Yes, I am known as Number Twelve. I do not 
require a name ; but like a Siberian convict, I am 
distinguished by a numeral. I have no domestic 
privacy, in one sense, for a dozen eager eyes are 
always turned upon me and my household. The 
bootmaker knows how many pair of boots I have ; 
he sees them ranged in a row in my dressing-room, 
as plainly as if he was amongst them, and he waits 
and watches for the decay which, he knows, must 
come to boots as to everything else. If I order more 
than I want, I am ' ' liberal — a patron of trade — a real 
gentleman — a man who likes to live and let live." 
If I exercise a careful economy, and wear them 



260 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

thoroughly and fairly, I am " an old hunks, mean, 
close, and shabby genteel." If I do not choose to 
have fish for dinner, the fishmonger is aware of the 
fact, without knowing the cause, and he and his wife 
settle, that we are not so well off as we appear to be. 
If our consumption of meat falls off from any cause, 
I know the butcher thinks that we are pinching 
our domestics. The plumber and house-decorator 
wonder, " how much longer we are going to leave 
our front in its present disgraceful condition. If our 
regard for health does not impel us to re-paint and 
paper the interior of our castle, we might at least 
consult the harmonious elegance of the neighbour- 
hood, and adorn the exterior." The tailor looks with 
ill-concealed disgust upon a certain great-coat, that 
I believe I have now worn for three seasons. His 
artistic eye may see in it an antiquated style, a 
threadbare face, and a generally diminished lustre; 
but, to my untrained gaze, it looks very little the 
worse for the long, but not severe struggle it has 
gone through. My grocer, I know, complains that 
we do not have puddings enough in the course of the 
year, and that our consumption of tea bears no ade- 
quate proportion to our consumption of sugar ; while 
our cheesemonger thinks we are remarkably niggardly 
in the way of eggs, and absurdly liberal in the matter 
of lard. 

So is every detail of our domestic expenditure 
registered, examined, compared, and criticised. Our 



GOOD-WILL. 261 

house, to the passer-by, looks solid, opaque, detached, 
snug, and private, but to this little band of hungry 
traders it is as a glass pavilion, easy of access, under 
the thin transparent covering of which the move- 
ments of the small family-circle within are distinctly 
visible. 

Nor is this knowledge (so interesting to them, 
but so embarrassing to me) confined within their 
own bosoms. Our neighbourhood advertises one of 
its eligible businesses for sale nearly every week, and 
the immense value of the " good will " is more than 
sufficiently dwelt upon. I am trotted out before the 
vulgar, inquiring eyes of all that motley tribe of small 
capitalists who are ever looking for a profitable in- 
vestment. I watch the little groups as they arrive 
one after the other ; and, I fancy, that I know them 
all. There is the couple of middle-aged, spinster 
sisters, who having received a small legacy, are search- 
ing for a genteel business, combining the lending 
library and the fancy trade — a mixture of literature 
and Berlin wool. They make several visits before 
they get to that decisive stage when the man of 
affairs is called in to confer upon the valuation. 
There is the stout, well-fed, gentleman's servant, 
who wishes to exchange the elegancies of May Fair 
for the sanded tap-room ; and, with the assistance of 
the brewer, make an effort to manage the thriving 
public-house at the corner. There is the young couple, 
just married, or going to be married, who make inquiry 



262 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

about the returns and prospects of the bread and 
fancy biscuit establishment. There is the mother 
who brings her son, a fat blood-thirsty boy, to inquire 
about the butcher's business which he has taken a 
strong fancy to. There is the omnibus conductor 
who wishes to take the greengrocer's shop for his 
wife to manage, while he attends to it in the in- 
tervals of his journeys from Paddington to the Bank. 
I know that the two spinster sisters inquire about 
me, and are told to what extent I patronise literature 
and the domestic fine arts. I know that the gentle- 
man's servant is duly informed of the consumption 
of my family in intoxicating liquors; and what I 
consider shameful dissipation on their part, he looks 
upon as showing a disregard for the interests of my 
neighbours, and a disinclination to " do another a 
turn." I feel that the young couple are deluded 
with grossly exaggerated accounts of the quantity of 
bread and flour consumed by "Number Twelve;" 
and I almost feel disposed to stop the negotiations 
by a disclosure. I see the mother and the blood- 
thirsty son in the butcher's shop, looking towards me 
with unmistakeable interest as I pass by, while they 
are pursuing their investigations. I see them again, 
the next day, looking over the book in which my 
name, or rather my number stands registered ; and 
in the evening, in the little greasy room behind the 
shop, where the transfer is about to be formally 
concluded, I know that I form a prominent topic of 



GOOD-WILL. 263 

discussion when the question of "good- will" comes 
to be decided upon. 

Sometimes I fancy the interests of the little knot 
of traders clash; the fishmonger becomes jealous of 
the butcher, or the butcher of the fishmonger ; the 
tailor thinks that I patronise the bootmaker more 
than I do him, or the bootmaker becomes discon- 
tented when he sees me with a new coat. The doctor 
grumbles that there is not enough stale fish and 
doubtful meat sold, to enable him to keep his family 
in a respectable manner ; and since they erected the 
gymnasium at the school at Islington for the boys, 
the demand for pills and black- draughts has sensibly 
fallen off. Although there is now an occasional dis- 
location, or a broken leg, it does not benefit him, as 
he has no surgical knowledge. 

If I dare to rebel against the right of property 
which these traders claim in me and my household, 
I am very soon brought to a proper sense of the 
duties of my position. When I forbade the grocer 
the house for a few days, in consequence of the un- 
bearable character of the articles he sold ; he waited 
upon me in the most confident manner, and coolly 
said, "that he would endeavour, if possible, to do 
better in future ; but begged respectfully and firmly 
to state that he had paid about thirty pounds for me 
in the good-will, and he certainly intended to have 
me ! " 

And so it is with them all. I may be weak, 



264 



UNDER BOW BELLS. 



imaginative, and morbidly sensitive, but I am morally 
certain that the very undertaker is looking towards 
me with longing eyes, waiting for the time, perhaps 
not far distant, when I shall slip through the greedy 
fingers of his fellow-tradesmen, and drop helplessly 
into his willing arms. I am sure that at the little 
evening gatherings in the tavern parlour, feeling that 
his chances of employment come few and far between, 
and utterly forgetful of the peculiar nature of his 
calling, he is one of the first to join in the universally 
popular tradesman's maxim of " live and let live." 
When the curtains are drawn close and the knocker 
is muflled, I know that his card will be dropped 
gently into my letter-box to remind me of his claims 
and his existence. 



265 



DEBTOR AND CREDITOR. 



I suppose we are all born with a mission. Those 
who do not find one ready-made to their hands, are 
never happy until they have created one ; and there- 
fore it comes to the same thing in the end, whether 
we are born with a mission or without one. My 
mission has been to give credit. I am the successor 
of the late John Smirker. In whatever books of 
accounts my name stands, you will always find it on 
the right side, with a balance in my favour. My 
father thought the best thing he could do to settle 
me in life was to buy the good-will of the business 
of the late John Smirker, a business not only esta- 
blished for fifty years in the City of London, but 
possessing flourishing branches in the cities of Oxford 
and Cambridge at the same time. I entered upon 
my new sphere in a calm and dutiful manner ; neither 
desponding nor enthusiastic. I am naturally of a 
quiet and meditative turn of mind ; given to inquiry, 
and, perhaps, rather quick in perceiving necessary 
reforms, though the last man in the world to have 
the robust energy to carry them out. My prede- 
cessor, the late John Smirker, in giving over the long 
list of book-debts that my father had purchased, 
dilated very warmly upon the immense value of 



266 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

customers who never took less than five years' credit. 
"What is a business," he inquired, (C without book- 
debts ? A thing without root, sir, — wholly without 
root. You have no hold upon your connection. In 
fact, you have no connection. Without book-debts, 
they come to-day, and they go to-morrow." I did 
not dispute this position, for I never argue. He was 
the born tradesman, and acted upon his precepts. 

A man need not leave the world for the church 
or a monkish seclusion to learn patience and to mor- 
tify the passions, while the ranks of trade are open 
to him. Neither need a man who wishes to see the 
world, as it is called, and study his fellow-men, spend 
his money in travelling through Europe, and his 
nights in the streets, while the ranks of trade are 
open to him. Neither need a reflective law-reformer 
retire with his ponderous tomes to some eremitical 
and inaccessible nook in the innermost of all Inner 
Temples, there to perfect principles which, when 
forced upon the world, shall promote the greatest 
happiness of the greatest number, while the ranks of 
trade are open to him. Christian recluse, student of 
the world, and ardent Benthamite, may all take 
their places behind the glass of my countinghouse- 
door, and find their time not unprofitably expended. 

The greatest difficulty that I labour under is 
infants — sturdy infants. They bristle up in every 
other page of my costly ledger (costly, I call it, because 
it is nearly all I got for my ten thousand pounds) ; 



DEBTOR AND CREDITOR. 267 

they are more costly under the head of Cambridge 
than London j and more fruitful under the head of 
Oxford than Cambridge. Physically they seem to be 
a very fine family of robust responsible young men ; 
legally they are held to be weak, and irresponsible 
idiots. Visually they stand before me as a race of 
palpable, moustaehed, solid giants ; but when I try to 
touch them with the strong arm of the law, like the 
spectres of the Brocken, they melt into thin air, 
and the strong arm of the law becomes strangely 
paralysed. Young Lord Merthyr Tydvil (at pre- 
sent at College) is a fair average specimen of the 
infant debtor. Let him sit for his portrait under 
two phases, — out of court and in court. Out of court, 
then, he rides a fine, high-spirited horse, which he 
manages with the ease and grace of an old/patrician 
horseman. In the cricket-field he bats like a young 
Hercules, and bowls with the velocity of the cata- 
pult. On the river it is a sight to see him pull the 
stroke-oar against wind and tide ; and he is the re- 
verse of contemptible when he puts on the gloves 
with a bargeman of the Cam. He wrestles and does 
the back-fall better than any man in all Illyria. His 
age is twenty years and nine months. His muscles 
are well set, and he looks older. He handles a skil- 
ful cue at the billiard-table, and makes an occasional 
bet upon horse-races with a good deal of judgment. 
Intellectually he seems to know pretty well what he 
is about. I don't think his name is across any ac- 



268 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

commodation bills, but what lie has received half the 
cash for. As to the amusements and vices of the 
metropolis, he is one of the best judges of them upon 
town, and acts as mentor to many others infants. 
His taste in wine is considered good, and his verdict on 
the merits of a new ballet-dancer is held to be final. 

In court, Lord Merthyr present a very different 
appearance. That collar, which used to stand up 
with such unbending parchment-like stiffness, the 
admiration and envy of his companions, is now, in 
the eyes of the law, turned down over each shoulder 
with infantine grace, and fastened with a ribbon of 
most becoming simplicity. That Chesterfield, poncho, 
sack, outer garment, coat, cloak, or whatever it is 
called, which had such a mature, distinguished, Tat- 
tersall, club-like air from Hyde Park corner to Black- 
wall, is now, in the eyes of the law, converted into a 
juvenile pinafore, fastened round the waist with a 
school-boy's belt, and conferring on its wearer the 
much- coveted gift of perpetual youth. That embroi- 
dered cigar-case — suspicious gift — filled with the 
choicest products of Havannah, at costly price, va- 
nishes, in the eye of the law, or becomes transformed 
into a box of sweetmeats, provided by the thoughtful 
care of a mother or a sister. That onyx -handled 
bamboo-cane, which taps the neatest of boots, is now, 
in the eyes of the law, a mere rounder stick, or an 
implement used in guiding a hoop. 

Those rooms at College, decorated with pictures 



DEBTOR AND CREDITOR. 269 

in the chastest taste, and littered with boxing-gloves, 
broken-pipes, and champagne corks, are, in the eyes 
of the law, the cradle of a child — a child who pos- 
sesses a charmed life, invulnerable to the shafts of 
the hateful sheriff. Poor, young, innocent, neglected, 
infant nobleman — type of some hundreds of children 
that I find upon my books, or rather the books of the 
late John Smirker, my predecessor — when I hear 
that thy aristocratic father, Earl Merthyr Tydvil, is 

in Italy, with no matter, I will not dwell upon 

the painful subject, and that the paternal acres are 
safely lodged in a dingy office in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, 
I feel a sense of pity for thee springing up in my 
snobbish, tradesman's heart. I have fed thee, and I 
have clothed thee, and I look upon thee as my own. 
Even if the law did not throw its protecting shield 
before thee, I would not touch a hair of thy patrician, 
infant head -, although thy ingratitude were ten times 
greater than it is. I am not unreasonable, and can 
make allowance for the feelings of a boy whose an- 
cestors were descended from the earliest Normans ; 
I do not ask for positive affection, but only for a 
slight diminution of contempt. Spoiled child of 
trade, and chosen one of the law, let thy commercial 
father know thy wants and wishes, and he is con- 
tent. 

But Shadrach, junior, when you stand up in 
court, pleading infancy with all the childish grace of 
an Israelite that knows no guile, I am amused at so 



270 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

clever an adaptation of Christian customs, but I am 
astonished at the learned credulity of the Bench. It 
is true that your people have no registry of baptisms, 
and everything, therefore, depends upon your own 
assertion ; but I have known you so many years about 
town, I have watched your fully developed frame 
standing out prominently in most places of public 
resort; I have witnessed your intellectual keenness 
in places where keenness was no rare quality, that, 
in my eyes, your back is beginning to bend, and your 
hair becoming silvered with gray, and I marvel much 
that a paternal law gathers you as a trusting, trusted 
innocent in the folds of its sheltering arms. There 
are many octogenarian debtors upon my books, or 
rather the books of the late John Smirker, my be- 
loved Shadrach, who are more in need of legal pro- 
tection than your youthful self. 

The next rose which the law has planted in the 
path of debt — the next thorn which it has planted in 
the path of credit — is the Statute of Limitations. A 
man of untutored reasoning powers, whose faculties 
had not been sharpened into an unnatural state of 
acuteness by legal study, would suppose that the 
longer a debt stood unpaid, the more would the obli- 
gation be increased. He would be astonished, there- 
fore, to find that just at the moment when he was 
about to claim an old debt with interest, simple and 
compound, and was probably going to reproach the 
debtor with keeping out of the way so long — that 



DEBTOR AND CREDITOR. 271 

what he considered to be a moral crime was an act of 
well- calculated thriftiness, having the effect of annul- 
ling the claim according to act of parliament. It 
would be difficult to explain to such a man upon what 
principle an act was framed, that allowed every debtor 
to go free who contrived to keep out of the way of 
his creditor six years. The wonderful doctrine that 
the more you wrong a man in trade the more you 
may, being embodied in a statute having legal force, 
is encouraging to that class that I call debtors ; but 
is not so encouraging to that other large, and very 
useful, tax-paying class that I call creditors. The 
inference is, that the State wishes to cultivate the 
first at the expense of the second. Or, perhaps, it is 
only a masked movement intended by discouraging 
the second to destroy the first ? When the Right 
Honourable Lord Battleaxe, K.C.B., takes as a rule, 
from his tradesmen, five years' credit, he has only to 
stretch the period one year more to carry it into 
eternity. 

I certainly was delighted to find the Reverend 
Origen Bilk, M.A., whom I — or rather the late John 
Smirker — had nursed through the different stages of 
fighting Oxonian, plucked undergraduate, crammed 
B.A., down to the living of St. Vitus- in-the-Fens, 
pleading " statute-run," and declining to pay for the 
college extravagances which he had indulged in with 
such vigorous prodigality. It is a good sign when a 
man — especially a clergyman — so far reforms the 



272 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

errors of his youth as to turn his back upon his early- 
dissipations, even to the extent of repudiating pay- 
ment for them. If ever the protecting shield of legal 
mercy was righteously extended over the prostrate 
form of the suffering debtor, it is in the case of the 
Reverend Origen Bilk, M.A. He has suffered much 
from the ruthless hands of the importunate creditor, 
who insisted upon clothing him with the richest 
purple and the finest linen, feeding him with the 
daintiest viands, and nourishing him with the rarest 
wines, and who now would seek him out in the calm 
seclusion of his clerical hermitage, and who — did not 
a considerate law most benevolently interfere — would 
destroy the unruffled serenity of that meditative 
mind, which now dwells upon things that are higher 
than the tailor's bill which perisheth. 

The same tenderness to debtors who keep out of 
the way, distinguishes even some of the severest laws 
which have been the product of our recent legisla- 
tion. The debtor is the darling of the law, and it 
cannot find it in its heart to deal harshly with him. 
The new Bills of Exchange Act, which allows me the 
tyranny of a judgment in the short period of twelve 
days, supposing that my victim has no valid plea or 
answer that he is not indebted to me, breaks down 
entirely if my victim keeps out of the way for six 
clear months ; and my thirst for vengeance is tan- 
talised with the tortures of the old, tardy, and expen- 
sive mode of proceeding. If I apply for the more 



DEBTOR AND CREDITOR. 273 

humble assistance of the County Court, I find I have 
still many weeks to wait before the pressure of busi- 
ness will allow of my obtaining a hearing. When 
my victim comes up and tells a plaintive story of his 
inability to pay in less than a given time of very long 
duration, the judge, imbued with the proper spirit of 
the law, inclines his ear to the dictates of mercy, 
checks the eager tyranny of the heartless creditor, 
and grants an order to pay, in twelve easy instal- 
ments. When the time for the first and second pay- 
ment has long passed without my victim making any 
attempt to keep to his bond, I have then the option 
of procuring what is called a judgment summons, 
which, if I am fortunate enough to get it served per- 
sonally upon my victim, within a certain time, will 
fix another remote day for a new trial, when my vic- 
tim will have to show cause why he failed in his con- 
tract. If the claim should be under twenty pounds, 
and my victim be a single young man victim, residing 
in furnished lodgings, with no estate, properly so 
called, he has merely to state this fact to the willing 
ear of the court, and leave me, like a baffled tiger, 
howling for my prey. If my victim thinks proper to 
set sail for the Cocos Islands, or some other land, 
where creditors cease from troubling, and the debtor 
is at rest, I can watch him go on board his bounding 
bark, and, like Calypso, mourn for the departure of 
my Ulysses ; but, alas ! I can do no more, for he only 
owes me nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and 

T 



274 UNDER BOW BELXS. 

elevenpence. Twopence more, and — shades of Solon 
and Lycurgus — I am avenged ! 

When I turn over the old unpaid bills of exchange 
of my predecessor, the late John Smirker, and find 
amongst them many under five pounds, I am re- 
minded of an old act passed in the time of George 
the Third, and never yet repealed, that is a perfect 
triumph of protective legislation. The bill of ex- 
change — the pride and glory of modern commerce — 
is looked upon as a luxury intended only for the en- 
joyment of the wholesale trade, and only granted to 
the retail under the most praiseworthy precautions. 
Poor Smirker's bills, I need not say, are so much 
waste paper ; for he had no idea of the requirements 
of the law touching the implements he was dealing 
with. A bill of exchange, according to George the 
Third — I say according to him, because he was any- 
thing but a royal nonentity in the state — if under five 
pounds, must not be drawn at a longer period than 
twenty-one days ; it must be paid away on the same 
day as that on which it is drawn ; its endorsement 
must set forth the name and address of the person to 
whom it is endorsed, and such endorsement, with 
every name upon it but the acceptors', must bear the 
signature of an attesting witness ! If any one of 
these requirements is neglected, it is fatal to the vali- 
dity of the instrument. When this cautious clause 
was perfected, the old king must have felt that, 
although he had entrusted a dangerous squib in the 



DEBTOR AND CREDITOR. 275 

hands of the small ignorant traders of the country, 
he had taken every precaution to issue directions for 
letting it off, so that the case might not burst and 
injure their fingers. Our present rulers must be of 
the same way of thinking, as they allow the clause to 
remain unexpunged from the statute-book, and deny 
the benefits of bills of exchange as proofs of debts 
and negotiable instruments, to all transactions under 
five pounds. 

The next thing that troubles me is a lingering 
remnant of feudality. The haughty baron of the 
nineteenth century does not despoil his humble re- 
tainer, the tradesman, but he takes credit, which is 
nearly the same thing. If the haughty baron is a 
member of the royal household, the feudal element 
is increased. The haughty baron rides rough-shod 
over all human feelings, and wears out patience of 
the most endurable kind. The haughty baron keeps 
me at bay to the very verge of the Statute of Limita- 
tions, and, in self-defence, I am obliged to have re- 
course to the law. The law informs me that I can 
do nothing without the written sanction of the lord 
steward of her Majesty's household. I go to Buck- 
ingham Palace, and after the usual delay and trouble, 
I obtain an interview with an under-secretary, who 
tells me that my application for permission to sue 
must be made in writing, accompanied with full par- 
ticulars of my claim ; and he kindly advises me to 
make it upon folio foolscap, with a margin. I send 



276 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

in my claim upon the haughty baron in the required 
form, and in a few days I receive a reply from the 
lord steward, stating that if the money be not paid 
within a certain liberal specified time from the date 
of the lord steward's communication, I have the lord 
steward's permission to take legal proceedings against 
the haughty baron. It is amusing to find a royal 
palace converted into a sanctuary for haughty but 
insolvent barons. It is possible that if the rude 
emissary of the law was allowed free entrance to the 
sacred precincts of the household, the royal banquet 
in the evening would be graced with at least one gold 
stick in waiting less than the royal eyes had whilome 
been accustomed to look upon. 

I believe that the best authorities on government 
hold that taxes are paid for protection to person and 
property. I will admit that my person is fairly pro- 
tected ; but if my heroic statesmen can spare a little 
time from those brilliant employments of ornamental 
government — Indian annexations, colonial extensions, 
military campaigns, diplomatic subtleties, and foreign 
legations — for the more homely task of protecting 
my property, by looking into the relations of debtor 
and creditor, the successor of the late John Smirker, 
the next time the collector calls, will pay his taxes 
with a more cheerful countenance. 



77 



THE INNOCENT HOLDER BUSINESS. 



My father was a baker, not far from Bow Church — 
at least so the world believed — though a good many 
more watches and jewels came into our bakehouse 
than sacks of flour. The general public could never 
understand why our bread was so much dearer than 
any other baker's, nor why we were so independent 
in our mode of transacting business. If the general 
public had seen the inside of some of the pies which 
were brought into our shop on the pretence of being 
baked, the general public would have been a good 
deal wiser. 

My father was, in fact, a receiver of stolen goods ; 
and a thriving, because a prudent and accomplished 
man, at his business. He kept good faith with his 
customers, and they, in return, were faithful to him. 
What he said he would pay, he paid; and what he 
received in the middle of watch and jewel pies, he 
settled for, as the money was wanted, in the middle 
of golden-penny-loaves, and silver-half- quarterns. 
The only mistake he made was that of sticking too 
close to his occupation ! The result was, that he died 
suddenly one night. 

My mother (she was only my stepmother) took 
care of herself, and swept up the whole of my father's 



278 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

property. When I returned from the funeral, I found 
the place in the possession of strangers, and that my 
mother had quietly left her mourning coach for a 
hackney-cab, at an early part of the return journey. 
I never saw her again ; and when I heard, some years 
afterwards, that she had repented of the errors of her 
youth, and had devoted all my father's wealth (for he 
died very rich) to building a chapel, and endowing a 
clergyman to serve in it, I took the liberty of doubt- 
ing the correctness of the story. 

I was thus suddenly thrown upon the world at 
the age of nineteen, with no capital to speak of, and 
compelled to seek my living. Regular employment, 
with its small, certain gains, and its irksome confine- 
ment, was decidedly unsuited to my taste and habits, 
and I had been brought up in too good a school to 
rush headlong into any criminal enterprise that in- 
volved much labour and risk. I was too young to 
start in opposition to the new occupants of my late 
father's premises ; although I might have commanded 
the whole of that excellent criminal connection ; so I 
went forth to learn wisdom, and to seek my fortune. 

After several years, many rebuffs, and some pri- 
vations, I found myself the marker at a noted West- 
end billiard-room. Our house was a very late house, 
where the young gentlemen, and sometimes the old 
gentlemen, played very high at pool, and I thus be- 
came acquainted with the names, the manners, the 
wants,, and the habits of the minor aristocracy. My 



THE INNOCENT HOLDER BUSINESS. 279 

City education had given me much information upon 
loans, loan-offices, discounting, and bills of exchange ; 
and, while I acquired a certain mechanical dexterity 
in handling the cue, my mind was devoted to far 
higher things. 

One evening towards dusk, when the afternoon 
play in the public- room had ceased, and before the 
evening play had begun, old Major Fobbs entered 
into very amicable conversation with me, as he was 
lazily practising some difficult cushion cannons. 

" Pendragon," he said, " are you any relation to 
the late governor of the Bank of England?" 

" Not that I am aware of," I replied, thinking 
that the major was amusing himself at my expense. 

"It's the same name, exactly," he answered, 
making a double hazard. 

" Indeed," I said, with affected apathy, waiting 
to hear further. 

"Has it never struck you, Pendragon," he con- 
tinued, " that, with that name, you might do much 
better for yourself than sticking here ? " 

" I should be glad to better my position," I said, 
meekly, " though I do not exactly see how." 

" Then I can show you," he returned, throwing 
down the cue, and speaking confidentially ; " become 
a director of a public company ! " 

This remark at once opened my eyes to a new 
field of enterprise ; and, a little further conversation 
with the major enlightened me still more. He was 



280 U NDER BOW BELLS. 

about to open an office— or, as lie described it, to get 
up an association — to be called " The Peace and 
Concord Loan and Discount Company ;" and lie 
wanted, as lie phrased it, to strengthen his Board. I 
knew something, before this, of the major's mode of 
life. The major had a small half-pay, as a retired 
member of some Indian military service, and he now 
traded on his position as a director of public com- 
panies. He belonged to the Chutnee Club, which 
gave him an aristocratic address that looked well in 
prospectuses. He was a director of two assurance 
companies, and the chairman of a trading company 
for providing the public with something they did not 
want, at a price rather higher than that of the regular 
tradespeople. These occupations procured him fees 
for each sitting (and the boards took care to sit 
pretty frequently), and he filled up his time and his 
income by playing at pool with unfledged youths 
about town at our public and private billiard tables. 

At the time when Major Fobbs first spoke to me, 
the trading company had nearly sat out the whole of 
its subscribed capital ; one assurance office was already 
undergoing the pleasing process of winding-up under 
the Acts for that purpose made and provided ; and 
the other office — so rumour said — was waiting anxi- 
ously to be served with the legal notice of dis- 
solution. 

I knew all these things concerning the major, 
and yet I listened to his proposals; for they pro- 



THE INNOCENT HOLDER BUSINESS. 281 

raised to enlarge my experience of the world, and to 
afford me an agreeable change of employment. In a 
few days I was transformed into Stanley Pendragon, 
Esquire, of Aurora Chambers, Mayfair, and Marsh 
Mallows Hall, near Fenny-Yokel, Lincolnshire. The 
first of these places was a metropolitan attic, the 
second a rural barn; and as they both belonged to 
the major, all letters, messages, and inquiries were 
properly received, and properly and carefully an- 
swered. 

The Peace and Concord Loan and Discount Office 
was speedily opened, and fully advertised. There 
were only two directors besides myself, the major 
and a gentleman from the Stock Exchange, or rather 
from the immediate neighbourhood. His name was 
Owen Griffiths, and he was described as belonging to 
the Cwmgwyrdyr Slate Quarries, near Gywrcmw 
Vale, Caernarvon. 

We made no bad debts, for we neither lent money 
upon personal security nor did we discount bills, and 
we existed entirely upon the inquiry fees which we 
extracted from the applicants. We charged ten shil- 
lings a mile (paid in advance) for investigating the 
character of the borrower and his referee, and we 
were so fastidious in our choice (as our terms were 
unusually easy and our rate of interest very low), 
that we could never find any one worthy of being 
entrusted with a portion of our capital. When we 
told the expectants, after the expiration of the third 



282 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

day, that our information was satisfactory, but not 
sufficiently so, and for several reasons we must 
decline to make the loan, we were, in some cases, 
loaded with strong epithets, which we received 
calmly, because we knew they were undeserved. 

After the first year, notwithstanding constant and 
judicious advertising, our business began to show 
palpable symptoms of dry-rot, and we began to look 
for some other employment suitable to our talents 
and our energies. The major becoming involved in 
some troublesome Chancery proceedings connected 
with his former companies (in which he had been 
indiscreet enough to accept shares), transferred all his 
interest in Aurora Chambers, Mayfair, and Marsh 
Mallows Hall, to me, and his eminent financial ability 
to the region of the Himalayas. 

I had amassed, I can scarcely tell how, the sub- 
stantial sum of eight hundred pounds. I was quite 
a capitalist, and I behaved like one. I opened a 
banking account with the old and respectable house 
of Croupy, Dross, and Croupy, and I prepared to 
commence a business on my own account, that had 
hitherto been very rudely organized — if organized at 
all — the business of An Innocent Holder. 

Owen Griffiths, of the Slate Quarry, had not been 
so fortunate as myself in his position as Director of 
the Peace and Concord Loan Office. In the first 
place, he had not received so large a share of the 
gains; in the second, he was not of a prudent and 



THE INNOCENT HOLDER BUSINESS. 283 

economical turn of mind ; and, just as I was about 
to propose to him some mutual arrangement, he saved 
me a world of trouble by begging me to devise a 
scheme that would keep him from going back to 
Capel Court, and give him congenial employment. 
After some little apparent hesitation, I developed my 
plans, and he fell into them with enthusiastic eager- 
ness. A third person was wanted to complete the 
secret association, and this person Owen Griffiths 
immediately provided. His name was Affy Davit, a 
professional witness, who had lingered about the 
courts of law for many years, attesting deeds, proving 
alibis, and swearing to identities, births, deaths, and 
marriages, in a prompt and unwavering manner. 
His gains had been precarious, his habits had been 
loose, and his indulgence had been gin, and was so 
still, whenever he could get it. By degrees his repu- 
tation for nerve to stand a cross-examination faded 
away, and he found himself passed by for newer and, 
as it was supposed, more reliable men. In this con- 
dition he was sent to me, and I approved of Owen 
Griffith's choice. His idea of payment was humble, 
while his powers of impersonation and disguise still 
remained ; and in the event of his ever proving un- 
faithful, his testimony was too notoriously valueless 
to be feared. 

In a few days Affy was established, under the 
name of Mr. Barking, in a small but comfortable 
office, on the borders of the City, as a gentleman of 



284 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

some capital, who discounted bills ; while Mr. Owen 
Griffiths, acting nnder my directions, moved about in 
billiard-rooms and other fashionable circles, in search 
of young gentlemen and others who had expectations, 
and wanted bills done. From that hour I held no 
visible communication with these two men, but lived 
in such a manner that my respectability increased 
day by day, while all my payments, large or small, 
being made through such old established bankers as 
Messrs. Croupy and Company, helped to foster the 
delusion of my being a good member of society. I 
was the Innocent Holder, and I did nothing that 
might destroy the belief in my innocence. Owen 
Griffiths was the agent, Any Davit was the dis- 
counter, and I was the person who finally held the 
bill for which I had given full and valuable conside- 
ration. When the young gentleman of full age was 
found — a very easy task — who wished to anticipate 
his property by a loan, a bill negotiation was sug- 
gested; and if no companion could be found silly 
enough to join his friend and write his name across 
a stamp, Owen Griffiths volunteered to draw and 
indorse the document for a handsome ready-money 
present. When the bill was properly manufactured 
it was taken to Mr. Barking to be turned into cash, 
and that cautious gentleman always required it to be 
left with him for at least two days that he might 
make inquiry about the stability of the drawer and 
the acceptor. Much against Mr. Griffith's wish, but 



THE INNOCENT HOLDER BUSINESS. 285 

with the full consent of the young gentleman, this 
was done, and no more was ever heard of the transac- 
tion until Mr. Barking had, in a few hours, changed 
his name, his office, and his wig, and I was in quiet 
and legal possession of the stamped document. When 
it arrived at maturity in the course of one month or 
two, as the case might be, I took steps to recover 
my property as an Innocent Holder. So careful 
were Mr. Griffiths and Mr. Barking (who sometimes 
changed /places as discounter and agent) in selecting 
their dupes, that the amounts were always consider- 
able and tolerably secure, and the position of the 
men such that they could not defend any action for 
fear of an exposure. A crafty advertisement in a 
clerical journal procnred a plentiful batch of curates 
and rectors, who dared not brave a trial when they 
found they had been deceived, and who made the best 
terms they could with me rather than risk their 
gowns, their characters, and their livings. Expect- 
ants, on the other hand, were equally tongue-tied, 
for fear that in contesting the payment of a thousand 
or fifteen hundred pounds, they might lay bare their 
lives, their hopes, and their associates, and lose, in 
the process, a sum of fifty times the value. Nor 
would their obstinacy have defeated me, for my mea- 
sures were too carefully prepared. There might have 
been abundant suspicion as to my moral claim to the 
bill, but I was its possessor ; there would have been 
no proof that I obtained it without giving full consi- 



286 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

deration, while my cheque-books (arranged by myself) 
would have testified in my favour, and the jury would 
have been directed by the judge to pronounce me an 
Innocent Holder. I was not harsh — not unreason- 
able to my unfortunate debtors. I was always to be 
spoken to; and many a time I have taken some- 
thing considerably less than the law entitled me to 
demand. 

My banker's balance rapidly increased, and with 
it my outward respectability and my motive force. I 
was scarcely forty years of age, but I was beginning 
to get pursy and to feel warm. There is no saying 
how long I might have remained in the business of 
an Innocent Holder, if it had not been for the noto- 
rious case of Pendragon and Fitzhobbledehoy. This 
sprang out of a stroke of genius — clever, but danger- 
ous — on the part of the unscrupulous Owen Griffiths 
and Any Davit, Esquire, alias Mr. Barking, and 
many other names too numerous to specify. 

The Honourable Algernon Fitzhobbledehoy was a 
young man about town of very expensive habits, with 
considerable property in possession, and more consi- 
derable property in expectation. He was a long per- 
son fall six feet in height ; long in the legs, which 
inclined inwards a little at the knees; long and 
crane-like in the neck; with a long nose, a long 
upper jaw, and a low retreating forehead, He had 
gone the regular round of education — private tutor, 
university, and so forth ; but it had not added much 



THE INNOCENT HOLDER BUSINESS. 287 

strength to a naturally weak intellect. He had gone 
the regular round of idleness and dissipation; and 
experience seemed to have left him younger and more 
gushing than ever. His heart was soft, impression- 
able, and sentimental ; and he fell desperately in love 
with a ballet-dancer. She was ten years his senior, 
saw her advantage ; and in a few weeks, but for an 
unlucky volume of poetry, the Honourable Algernon 
Eitzhobbledehoy would have been a married man. 

Mademoiselle Celestina Pomade, as she styled 
herself, had been to Paris, where she had acquired a 
French accent, and a foreign fascination of manner ; 
but her birth-place was Ludlow, her name was 
Griffiths, and she was a niece to Owen Griffiths, my 
faithful ally. Amongst other presents which the 
enamoured Algernon had given his Celestina was a 
volume of miscellaneous verses, on the clear, white 
fly-leaf of which he had written "to my beloved 
Celestina Pomade, from her ever affectionate and de- 
voted Algernon Fitzhobbledehoy." The signature was 
bold, rather below the other writing, and full across 
the centre of the sheet. 

Owen Griffiths called upon his niece one morning 
at her lodgings, and was shown into a handsomely- 
fur uished sitting-room, where he was left for some 
time ; as the young lady had not yet come down from 
her chamber. To amuse himself, he took up some of 
the books upon the table, and amongst the rest the 
volume of poetry, when his eye soon rested upon the 



288 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

signature of the young man about town. Knowing 
the writer, and having no scruples of conscience, he 
conveyed the book to the broad pocket of his coat, 
and took his leave at the earliest possible moment 
after his unsuspecting relative thought proper to make 
her appearance. In a very short time the valuable 
counsels of Affy Davit were called in, and with a 
chemical preparation which that useful friend and 
companion had often used in his younger days, the 
words of affection on the leaf of the book were obli- 
terated, for ever, without a mark, and nothing left 
but the bold signature of Algernon Fitzhobbledehoy 
across the blank page. The paper was torn out, cut, 
trimmed, filled up in the form of a bill of exchange 
for two thousand five hundred pounds, payable one 
month after date (the date being thrown back 
eighteen days), and then both Owen Griffiths and 
Billy Affy Davit, thoroughly disguised, went boldly 
before the Stamp Commissioners at Somerset House, 
told their story, paid the ten pounds penalty, and the 
cost of the stamp, and in one of those many moments 
of official indolence, just before the termination of 
office hours, they got their instrument made legally 
complete. 

Of course I knew nothing of these proceedings 
until some time afterwards, and of course the bill 
came regularly to me. At the expiration of the short 
time the bill had to run I made application to the 
astonished Algernon Eitzhobbledehoy for payment, 



THE INNOCENT HOLDER BUSINESS. 289 

and the unexpected demand almost deprived him 
of the little wit he ever had at command. He was, 
without exception, the weakest man I ever had to deal 
with ; but your very weak men are not the best sub- 
jects for an Innocent Holder's trade. They want too 
much propping up, they consult too many friends and 
legal advisers, and the result is that they go to law, 
when your stronger debtor or victim arranges for 
himself. 

This was the case with the Honourable Algernon 
Fitzhobbledehoy, and hence the celebrated civil cause 
wherein I was the plaintiff and he was the defendant. 
Of course I gained the day — the Innocent Holder 
always does and must — though the jury winced a little 
when told by the judge what form their decision 
must take. The Honourable Algernon could not 
deny his handwriting; I obtained an order for prin- 
cipal, costs, and interest, and the impartial justice of 
the law was vindicated. The case was so notorious at 
the time, that I retired, at once, from business, and 
the Honourable Algernon Fitzhobbledehoy, though he 
retired from the court under the strong impression 
that he was a deeply injured man, had had full value 
for his money, in my belief, in being saved (as he 
was) from a weak and imprudent marriage. 

Though I am no longer an Innocent Holder, 
there are plenty of my trade left, and men of the Affy 
Davit and Owen Griffiths class have not to go far in 
search of a receiver. Many men, whose early days 

v 



290 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

were brighter than mine, are found with capital to 
buy acceptances, asking no questions from the seller 
as long as the article is cheap. With something of 
the pride of an old conjuror exposing his tricks, I 
record my plans and operations, in the hope of again 
warning those who have been often warned before to 
little purpose. If people will shut their eyes, and 
close their ears they must not complain if they fall, 
for the law reformer has no power to help them 5 and 
they can only save themselves. 



291 



AN EXECUTOR. 



Silas Nestegg, Esquire, having died suddenly, ap- 
pointed me his executor, in conjunction with a gentle- 
man whom I had never before heard of. I did not 
refuse the trust, as it was forced upon me by friend- 
ship, although I had no recollection of ever being 
consulted on the subject. Silas Nestegg was always 
extremely uncommunicative upon matters connected 
with his property, and I was always very unwilling 
to ask him any questions. 

My deceased friend was one of those quiet, rest- 
less speculators, who are very common amongst mid- 
dle-aged gentlemen of leisure commanding a certain 
amount of floating capital. He was always running 
about the City for the purpose of selling out of some- 
thing, buying into something else, and spreading his 
money over the greatest possible area. He was part 
of the tank in a large water- works ; he was a station 
or an engine on a Canadian railway ; he was twenty 
yards of road-pipes in a leading gas factory ; he was 
half of a fishing-smack, and two-thirds of a steam tug- 
boat; he was so many tons of French bread that 
went into the mouths of French soldiers, and so many 
pounds of Austrian lead that went into those soldiers' 
hearts; he was a blind-alley in a Welsh coal mine; 



292 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

a dozen yards of electric cable at the bottom of the 
Atlantic Ocean; another dozen yards of the same 
material about to be flung into the Red Sea ; lie was 
two omnibuses and six pairs of horses ; he was five 
hundred sovereigns shovelled about on a banker's 
counter ; he was eighty gallons of the finest gin turned 
out of a London joint-stock distillery; he was ready 
to carry the post-office mails; to provide for the 
widow on the death of her husband ; to compensate 
the railway traveller for a smashed nose, or a wooden 
leg ; to put out a fire, or to make good the loss ; 
to build a theatre to annoy a chapel, or to build 
a chapel to fulminate against a theatre. In short, 
he was that machine of universal adaptability — a 
capitalist who dabbled a little in almost every in- 
vestment. 

Some of these shares and undertakings I was not 
surprised to find, as I heard of them, at different 
times, from my late friend's own mouth ; but most 
of them came upon me quite unexpectedly. 

Those I had heard of turned out to be the safe 
and profitable investments, while those I had never 
heard of were the dead leaves of the capitalist's cash- 
box. The late Silas Nestegg, Esquire, was never 
known to admit that his judgment had led him into 
anything like a failure. 

Some of the unavoidable detail of this sudden 
trust duty was attended to by my late friend's so- 
licitors; but much more — and that, perhaps, the 



AN EXECUTOR. 293 

most troublesome and responsible portion — fell upon 
me and my co-executor. 

My co-executor was ,the mildest of all existing 
business men. He bad no opinion of his own, and 
no voice to enforce it. He was small in body, 
weak in spirit, and feeble in mind. He was thin, 
fair, fifty-six, always scrupulously clean, and always 
dressed in old-fashioned tied shoes, that were like 
dancing-pumps. 

He left everything to me ; he listened atten- 
tively to everything I said, and he merely repeated 
a few of the last words I had uttered, which he 
looked upon as an answer. His name was Ebenezer 
Nutmeg, and he was very particular in informing me 
that he was no relation of the deceased, in case I 
should think so from the similarity of surname. 

The difficulties attendant upon winding up a com- 
plicated estate were increased, in the present instance, 
by the character of the people amongst whom we had 
to divide the property. 

The chief legatee was a nephew of the late Silas 
Nestegg, Esquire (who died a bachelor), a muscular 
ruffian about thirty-five, who had been to sea; who 
had tried a digger's life, or something of that kind, 
in California, without success; who had left the 
country after nearly killing a man in San Francisco 
over a game of dominoes ; and who was found, upon 
being advertised for, as a private soldier in a regiment 
of the line, with a very bad character, a love of raw 



294 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

brandy, and a tendency to delirium tremens. His 
commanding officers candidly told us, after we had 
paid the regulation amount to buy him off, that they 
would gladly have parted with him for half the 
money. 

Besides this hopeful ward, whose interests we 
were bound to attend to, under the strictest penal- 
ties of the law, we were brought into contact with 
a number of small legatees, of different degrees 
of relationship to the deceased capitalist. The 
smaller their claims under the will, the more impor- 
tunate the claimants, the more suspicious of our legal 
authority over the property, and the more indignant 
at our alleged slowness in proceeding to realise and 
divide. There was one thin, middle-aged lady, whose 
legacy was something less than a hundred pounds, 
who was always waiting to see me when I came down- 
stairs in the morning, and who wrote me plaintive 
letters — not unlike begging-letters — when any busi- 
ness or pleasure took me out of town for a few days. 
She was pinched and shabby in appearance ; she took 
snuff; she carried an umbrella and wore pattens; 
she always sat on the extreme edge of a chair, till she 
seemed in momentary danger of slipping off; and she 
held a glass of wine or a cup of tea mincingly in her 
hands, which were always encased in long, claw-like, 
faded, and darned black gloves. She had lived for 
many years without requiring parochial assistance, or 
without being taken to jail for debt i but the prospect 



AN EXECUTOR. 295 

of this small legacy seemed, all at once, to overwhelm 
her with misfortune. The broker's man had just that 
morning been put into possession of her apartments 
for one quarter's rent, and could I advance her five or 
ten pounds, on account ? I must know how extremely 
inconvenient it was for a maiden lady like herself 
to lodge in the same rooms with a broker's man ; and 
if it had not been for a sympathetic female in the 
same house, who lent her half a bed, she would have 
been compelled to walk about the streets all night, 
as she had no money to procure another lodging. 
My refusals only brought her back again, morning 
after morning, to rate me loudly, at last, upon my 
hard-hearted conduct. 

"It's all very well for you," she said, glancing 
round my breakfast parlour, " who recline in the lap 
of luxury, but how would you like all your things to 
be standing on a truck in the street ? " 

"Not at all/' I replied; "but that has nothing 
to do with my duties as a trustee." 

" That's where my little hard-earned property 
will be then in a few minutes," she continued, not 
heeding my last remark, and bursting into tears. " I 
left them cording up the boxes, and throwing the 
crockery about, as I came away." 

I was compelled to advance her five-and -twenty 
pounds out of my own pocket before I could get rid 
of her, although I had no idea whether the property, 
spread about as it was, would realise any of the lega- 



296 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

cies after the sales were effected and the debts were 
paid. 

My co-executor fared even worse than I did : for 
the rampant nephew had found him out, and had 
favoured him with several unseasonable visits in a 
triumphant state of drink. 

This hopeful legatee had already placed himself in 
funds, by means of a small bill transaction with a 
trusting friend ; and as the bill had arrived at matu- 
rity without being paid, and the trusting friend be- 
gan to get anxious for his capital and interest, the 
hopeful legatee was easily prevailed upon to make a 
demonstration against his tardy, self-interested trus- 
tees, especially as he was naturally inclined for such 
a hostile proceeding. 

c: Look here," he said. " I'm not a-going to be 
kept out o' my property in this way. Hand over the 
stuff." 

" Hand over the stuff ! Exactly," answered my 
timid co-executor. " Pray, sir, let me beg of you, 
sir, not to make such a noise, as you see I'm only in 
lodgings." 

"I don't know anything about lodgings," re- 
turned the hopeful legatee, even more noisily than 
before, and striding about the apartment, which was 
on the first floor. " I can't live upon air, can I ? 
D'ye want me to beg in the streets?" 

(c Not exactly," replied my timid co-executor, in 
his way ; " you can't live upon air, can you ? You 



AN EXECUTOR. 297 

don't want to beg in the streets ? Pray, sir, let me 
implore you, sir ; my landlady's very particular, 
and I think she's alarmed at the noise." 

" Noise be jiggered !" continued the hopeful lega- 
tee, " she'll be alarmed at more than that, if I don't 
get fifty pound. There's no Court o' Chancery 
about me; I can take care o' myself without any 
law." 

" Without any law, exactly, sir ; pray, sir, don't 
strike the table, sir, because it's not mine." 

Of course my timid co-executor was worked upon 
by these violent actions to advance various sums of 
money to the hopeful legatee, at different times, until 
the amount had reached something like two hundred 
pounds. He complained to me that this was not the 
worst effect of the legatee's visits, as his landlady — 
by whom he seemed to be governed, although he was 
never back in his rent — had already begun to suspect 
that the noisy visitor had some mysterious claim upon 
him, as an illegitimate or discarded son. 

In all cases of sale and payment I had to consult 
my co-executor, although his character rendered this 
ceremony a purely formal matter. 

" I think," I have often said, when one of the 
knotty points arose, which were constantly presenting 
themselves during the progress of our trusteeship, 
" we had better not incur any further responsibility 
without the advice of our solicitor ? " 

" Without the advice of our solicitor ? exactly," 



298 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

he always replied ; " we had better not go any further 
without the advice of our solicitor." 

The advice of our solicitor was not worth much 
when obtained, except that it gave a legal sanction to 
our proceedings. On all occasions, when a question 
of extraordinary responsibility was involved, our soli- 
citor flew for safety to counsel's opinion. By these 
means the risk (if any) was transferred from the 
shoulders of the attorney, who would have been 
responsible, to the shoulders of the barrister, who was 
not responsible, and so it came back in due course to 
us, that is, to me, being burdened through its journey 
with much writing, much talking, and much expense. 

Time and industry enabled us, at last, to realise 
every variety of eccentric security, without much loss 
to the estate, except a positively inconvertible share 
in a joint-stock government annuity, called a Tontine. 

A Tontine is, I believe, a scheme by which a 
number of persons subscribe a certain sum each to 
a fund, under Treasury management, in consideration 
of which payment, they each receive a certain an- 
nuity up to the period of their respective deaths, 
when the whole of their lapsed interest is transferred 
to the credit of the survivors. The one who lives 
the longest thus becomes the recipient of all the an- 
nuities of his dead partners, and when he dies, in 
his turn, the yearly payment ceases. His claim, as 
long as he lives, may be transferred to any assignee, 
the only condition of payment being that he shall be 



AN EXECUTOR. 299 

produced personally at the office, except in cases of 
certified illness, et cetera, when satisfactory evidence 
of his existence must be tendered. 

The late Silas Nestegg, Esquire, at the time of 
his death, was the holder and assignee of a share of 
this kind for a considerable sum, which had been 
transferred to him as consideration for a debt by the 
original owner, who was now the sole survivor — the 
last man — of this particular Tontine. The annuity 
payable upon this share became due twice a-year, in 
two equal amounts, and continued fruitful of labour 
and trouble long after all the other duties of our 
trust had been discharged and almost forgotten. The 
faded female legatee had disappeared, having got 
some one to marry her on the strength of her pro- 
perty (the hundred pounds, less money drawn on ac- 
count) and her excellent expectations : the hopeful 
legatee, who had never been sober since the day of 
his coming into his property, had killed himself by 
tumbling head first from the top of an omnibus : my 
feeble co-executor had married his landlady, which 
produced such a marked change in his character, 
that on one occasion (probably stimulated by his 
wife) he positively refused to sign a necessary docu- 
ment, for fear of getting into trouble, and hinted to 
our solicitor, before retiring in disgust from active 
co-executorship, that I had not consulted him upon 
important points of business in a respectful and pro- 
per manner. All these things, and many others had 



300 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

occurred, and still I was left to collect the half-yearly 
payments of the Tontine annuity. 

It was no easy task. The annuitant was a rather 
vulgar, restless man who was always alive — and kick- 
ing. The annuity had been purchased for him when 
young, by a thoughtful relative, and he might now 
have been in the quiet enjoyment of it, but for an 
unfortunate tendency to insolvency. If the late Silas 
Nestegg, Esquire, was always ready to invest in any 
undertaking, without much investigation, the Ton- 
tine annuitant was always ready to conduct any un- 
dertaking, without any special knowledge or expe- 
rience. This affinity of character may have been 
the cause of bringing the two men — the dead and 
the living — together in the relation of creditor and 
debtor. 

The Tontine annuitant, at the time when I 
wanted him, could never be found. He had no longer 
any interest in obtaining the payment of the annuity, 
and he, therefore, never presented himself to prove 
his existence till he was sought out and fetched. He 
had always forgotten all about it. When I proposed 
to give him a per centage upon the receipts, in order 
to secure his attendance, our solicitor — or rather my 
solicitor, as I was now compelled to move individually 
— consulted counsel, as usual, who told the attorney, 
as usual, who then told me, that the law gave me no 
power whatever to act in such a sensible manner. 
There was no course left open but to use all due dili- 



AN EXECUTOR. 301 

gence in finding the Tontine annuitant when he was 
wanted, which I was bound to do in my capacity of 
trustee, under penalty of all the terrors of the Court 
of Chancery. My plan was to watch the published 
insolvents' list, which saved me a good deal of useless 
labour. To go to any shop or house that had been 
in the possession of the Tontine annuitant on the 
last day of payment, was only to find it empty and 
closed, or with another name on the door-plate or 
over the window front. The explanation of this 
peculiar restlessness on the part of the Tontine 
annuitant was found in his description when he came 
before the commissioner. He had always been 
trading under the firm of Inkstand and Co., as 
general merchants ; he had always been first of one 
street, then of another street, and afterwards renting 
furnished apartments in another street, while he 
followed no trade or occupation ; he had always been 
a director of a loan- office, a manager of a gold mining 
company, and auditor of some provident tradesmen's 
association, an accountant, a photographic artist, a 
temperance lecturer, or speaking convert, a chorus 
singer, a dealer in pictures, an author, a public reader 
of plays, a traveller on commission, and a keeper of a 
servants' registry-office. He had always been acting 
part of the time as a house-agent at the new marine 
settlement of Stillwater, and during the whole of the 
time had given lessons in animal magnetism and the 
art of clairvoyance. 



302 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

All this apparent industry and activity never 
seemed to meet with a substantial reward, and he 
went as regularly to Portugal Street, for the benefit of 
the Act, as some people do to the Bank of England, 
for the benefit of the dividends. He knew all the 
Commissioners of Insolvency, with their tempers, 
their prejudices, their weaknesses, and their peculiar 
interpretations of the law, and he was almost as much 
interested in the death or retirement of one of these 
judges as the crowd of rising old barristers who hoped 
to get the appointment. 

So far my Tontine annuitant was always to be 
found ; but the trouble of searching for him in the 
particularly stifling atmosphere of a Portugal Street 
law court, or the equally unsavoury atmosphere of a 
Portugal Street tavern, had soon too little of novelty 
about it to make it any longer agreeable. I had 
seriously begun to consider what course I could adopt 
to secure him in one spot, and had even written to a 
friend who had some interest about procuring him a 
government appointment, when,, to my great relief, I 
heard that he had suddenly sailed for British Co- 
lumbia to introduce a new system of fire and life in- 
surance. I have used all due diligence as a trustee 
to find him out, by writing a few letters to the 
colony, without obtaining any reply; and I consider 
my labours as an executor finally closed. I never 
expect to see my Tontine annuitant again, and I shall 
certainly never blindly accept another similar trust, 



303 



NEW PUPPETS FOR OLD ONES. 



I have now cried out pretty loudly against adultera- 
tions and shams j but then the shams and adultera- 
tions have always been in a different trade from my 
own. It is not without a struggle that I denounce 
the obsolete puppets used in my own literary craft ; 
but it is time that their fluttering rags should be 
given to the winds. 

Eirst, there is the miser — a pure creation of 
fancy — an old and faithful puppet, who has amused 
the crowd for many centuries, though he is like no- 
thing in the known world. I never saw his living 
model, nor any authentic account of its past exist- 
ence; but a certain school of art required such a 
puppet, and he was dressed up to fill the vacant place. 
We gave him long, gray hair, sharp features, and 
eager eyes ; we made him very thin, and we caused 
him to have a nervous twitching of the hands. We 
raised our patchwork idol in the market-place, and 
we laughed with pity and scorn at the number of its 
worshippers. We told him to hide his money in 
coal-cellars and in dust-bins ; told him to visit his 
store with extreme caution in the dead of night ; and 
we told him to howl like a dog when he fancied that 
his secret was discovered. All these things he faith- 



304 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

fully did, not wisely, but too well; and those who 
looked upon him thought that avarice stood before 
them. No one seemed to inquire why his face was 
so dirty, when water and comfort were so cheap ; or 
where he got the guinea (as he never appeared to 
work) which he was always adding to his store. No 
one ever doubted his acknowledged powers of calcula- 
tion, though they saw him losing interest on his 
capital every hour, by hiding a small fortune in a 
summer-house, or a sewer. 

By adding a little more dirt to his face, and 
making a very slight alteration in his dress, we trans- 
formed him at once to a bone-picker ; and no one 
seemed to be aware that the same puppet still moved 
before their eyes. Again, when we caused him to 
spend his money in pictures and statues, and to gloat 
over these things instead of the cash which had 
bought them, we succeeded in deceiving ourselves, 
and we fully believed that the miser-puppet had given 
place to the enlightened patron of art. 

All this time the real miser has been walking 
about the great world, unnoticed and undepicted. 
Sometimes he takes the form of a small fundholder, 
living in an inaccessible lodging, upon a very small 
portion of his annual dividends. His face is not 
dirty; nor are his clothes ragged; for he finds it far 
more profitable to be decent, like his fellow-men. He 
is not thin, but plump ; not nervous, but remarkably 
cool. He is a bachelor, of course, as families are ex- 



NEW PUPPETS FOE, OLD ONES. 305 

pensive things ; but he keeps a carefully brushed suit 
for evening dress, his plan being to dine very often 
at the expense of his friends. Five pounds invested 
with his tailor, some three years ago, have paid him a 
very respectable interest ever since. His omnibus- 
hire is not much ; his cab-fare even less ; for in wet 
weather he generally manages to secure a friendly lift. 
His amusements are selected from the national free 
list ; and he has none of the small vices which eat 
into the heart of wealth. He is called a mean and 
shabby hunks by those who fancy they have caught 
a glimpse of his inner-life. His name was never seen 
as a subscriber to a charitable fund ; but he is a bene- 
factor to his country, for all that. His savings are 
poured into the great ocean of capital, which alone 
gives food and employment to the labouring mass. 

Such is more like the actual miser — (sometimes 
male, sometimes female) — than the wild, old, moping 
idiot, that we literary craftsmen have clung to so 
long. If we are to claim any credit as depicters of 
human nature as it is, it is time that we drove out 
the old puppet, and welcomed in the new. 

The next puppet to be sacrificed is that favourite 
variation of the miser — the old money-lender. We 
put him into a dingy office that we never saw; gave 
him parchments and mouldy furniture that he did 
not want ; and we made him aged, weird, and grasp- 
ing, which he never was. We caused him to affect a 
disregard for that business, by which he hoped to 

x 



306 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

live, as if the trade of selling money was different 
from the trade of selling goods. We made the shop- 
keeper-puppet cringing and obsequious; but the 
money-lender puppet must be retiring and severe. 
We told him to say that he had no money himself, 
but he knew a friend in the City who had. If a 
wine-merchant had given such an answer to a cus- 
tomer, we should at once have perceived the ab- 
surdity of that. It was the old economical mistake 
of regarding gold as a commodity different from 
everything else. 

We called our old money-lender puppet Sixty per 
Cent. • a singular name that was based upon some 
vague tradition of his rates for accommodation. We 
were told that the usury laws had been long abo- 
lished; but we scarcely understood what our in- 
formants meant. We had been accustomed for so 
long to connect money with old, withered puppets, 
who ground down the needy for their own selfish ad- 
vantage, that we forgot all about the law of supply 
and demand, and the freedom which was open to the 
borrower of looking for a cheaper market. 

While we have been hoisting this miserable cari- 
cature on high, the real money-lender has been plying 
his trade, unconscious that any banded brothers of 
genius have been trying to gibbet him in effigy. 
There is nothing very remarkable in this, when the 
old puppet is compared with the living model. The 
latter is stout, jolly, polite,, a man of the world, and 



NEW PUPPETS POR OLD ONES. 307 

not a retiring, morose hermit. He is a father of a 
family, an affectionate son, and a most exemplary 
husband. He is always anxious to do business at the 
market-price ; properly shaved, in a clean shirt with 
diamond studs, and generally in a comfortable man- 
sion. Far from being tender about asking sixty per 
cent., he has often demanded a hundred; and he 
has sometimes, on the other hand, lent money at 
four and- a -half. It all resolves itself into a question 
of security j and the lowest rates are found to pay the 
best in the end. He sometimes makes a show of 
plate upon his dinner-table, and jewellery upon his 
wife and daughters at the opera, which have been left 
with him as substantial security for equally sub- 
stantial loans. This is a weakness, not a crime ; and 
is allowed for in the bill. Some traces of the old 
persecuting stigma still hang about him which have 
come down from the bad, dark days of the early Eng- 
lish Jews. If he makes his mistakes — like other 
traders — and falls into bankruptcy, never to rise 
again, the old name will cling to him as he shuffles 
in shabby clothes along the streets, and he will be 
known as "that cursed money-lender " to the end 
of his days. 

Take him with all his virtues, and with all his 
faults, he is still the money-lender of the world ; and 
the old false puppet must be again driven out, to 
make way for the new one, and the true. 

The next puppet to be destroyed is one that we 



308 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

ingeniously made by mixing the miser and the 
money-lender. "We boldly called it a Capitalist ; and 
the imposition was never discovered beyond the nar- 
row limits of the class so falsely and imperfectly por- 
trayed. Yv r e made him thin and parchment-faced, 
exact, methodical, cold, cautious, gloomy, and curt ; 
tyrannical to work-people and inferiors ; a grinder- 
down of labour; a circumventer of his brother men. 

We gave him no imagination, no courage, no 
sympathy, and, above all, no heart. We sent him 
crawling about the City streets, bent double with 
anxiety and age. We peopled exchanges and market- 
places with such melancholy shadows, until they 
became, in appearance, the abodes of the damned. 
We made him pace his small, dingy, counting- 
house, waiting for an important post, like a hungry 
tiger in his cage. We made his life one never-ending 
rack, his capital a curse, his occupation a round of 
torment, risk, and loss. We made the line that 
divided him from the gambler-puppet so narrow, that 
a few slight touches sent him over the barrier ; while 
a few heavier touches converted him into the forger, 
the felon, and the suicide ! 

All this time the real capitalist — an open-hearted, 
bold, cheerful, dashing creature — has been devour- 
ing his mid- day pastry at a popular City bun- shop, or 
slapping his commercial connections on the back, in 
places where merchants most do congregate. He is 
not thin, he is not parchment-faced, he is scarcely 



NEW PUPPETS FOR OLD ONES. 309 

cautious, and he is certainly not cold. Let him hear 
of a thoroughly new and adventurous investment, 
and it stirs his heart — for he has one — like a trumpet, 
He is in no way dependent on a bundle of flimsy 
letters, for the telegraph and other advanced contriv- 
ances supply him with the broad facts of intelligence ; 
and his business is conducted on insurances and sys- 
tems that secure him from much anxiety with regard 
to his ventures. His capital is only a curse to him 
when it lies idle at his banker's ; and the occupation 
that gives it activity is at once to him a pleasure and 
a profit. His imagination is far too rich, far too active, 
far too practical, as he often finds to his cost, when 
the palace of enterprise he has raised with his wealth 
often sinks before his eyes, leaving no trace but a 
bleak dry desert of barren sand. Then it is that his 
ground-clown work-people pass gaily over to another 
master, without a thought of unselfish sympathy for 
their late unfortunate employer. 

Such is the real, living, breathing capitalist that 
we may see any hour of the day, any day of our 
lives; and it is time that his puppet-caricature should 
be consigned to the limbo of nightmares, monstrosi- 
ties, and walking lies. 

The next puppet requiring decent burial is that 
well-known comic puppet, the fat alderman. We 
made him wheezy and short-breathed; we gave him 
small, pigs' eyes, and a stomach like a feather-bed ; 
we made his life a perpetual succession of feasts ; we 



310 UNDER BOW BELLS. 

told him his decision on turtle was final; and we 
called him by the funny names of Waddle or Gobble. 
He was the only puppet in the world who ever dined 
or thought of dining, and the only one who ever 
reached the weight of eighteen stone. We made his 
face as purple as a winter's sun seen through a fog ; 
and we always gave him three chins, and sometimes 
four. We forgot, when we displayed him sleeping 
after a city banquet in his brougham, which he 
almost filled, that he was only an alderman in his 
public capacity, while in private he was necessarily a 
capitalist (and perhaps a money-lender), whom we 
had only just represented as excessively lean. Our 
audience, luckily for us, had short memories, as well 
as weak observation, and the contradiction passed 
without discovery or comment. We gave him the 
gout, and then he was excessively amusing, for gout 
is essentially a comic disease. The more testy, the 
more red-faced, the more helpless we made him; the 
more tea-urns we made to drip boiling water upon 
his legs, and the more unruly boys we made to stamp 
upon his agonised toes, the more was our strong 
sense of humour relished by our patrons, and ex- 
tolled by the critical beadles who guard the Temple 
of Fame. A few almost imperceptible touches con- 
verted him into the chairman of a vestry; or some 
eminent parochial representative of the people, and 
the old high-tory, obstructive, freedom-hating sneer- 
ers at municipal liberty, and oppOsers of free govern- 



NEW PUPPETS FOIl OLD ONES. 311 

ment, laughed loudly at our amusing power of comic 
characterisation, and secretly blessed us for aiding 
their designs. Every blow that we dealt to the City, 
which in the old days had been the stout and unflinch- 
ing champion of right against dishonesty and might, 
every shaft of shallow ridicule which we aimed at the 
parish — a copy of the City — were joy and satisfaction 
to their reactionary hearts. 

All this time the real alderman has been walking 
briskly about under Bow Bells, unconscious of the 
load of fat with which we have invested him. He 
has been working officially and mercantilely his good 
twelve hours every day, unoppressed by the sense of 
drowsiness that accompanies a multitude of chins. 
He is more ignorant of the qualities of turtle, and 
less solicitous about his dinner, than many a Grub 
Street author of the present day, whose puppet repre- 
sentative, by the way, requires quite as much altera- 
tion as that of the alderman, the capitalist, the 
money-lender, and the miser. 

We look upon ourselves as guides and instructors 
of the people, and we have dazzled and deceived 
them with a set of unnatural scarecrows. We have 
held up a puppet spy and a puppet Jesuit, with sneak 
and villain written on their faces, and while our 
believers have been gazing upon these deceptive pic- 
tures, the real spy and the real Jesuit have worked 
laughingly in the broad light of day, indebted to us 
for the shelter of an effective disguise. 



312 UNDER BOW BELJ,S. 

These, with many other monsters of our hands, 
have gone abroad into the world, and the world still 
believes them to be solid gods, though they are more 
empty than the air. It is our duty, as their creators, 
to stand upon the edge of that narrow stream which 
divides the present from the past, and as they, one 
by one, attempt to cross, to smite them down, and 
bury them for ever from the light. * 



THE END. 



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A Walk through a House, shown by Scenes in the Journey. Consisting of 
Twenty bold outline copies of Objects familiar to Every-day Life. By Hannah 
Bolton. 

12mo, cloth, price Is. 6d. 

PRACTICAL GEOMETRY 
FOR SCHOOLS AND WORKMEN. 

With Illustrative Diagrams. By Hoeace Geant. 



Eighth Edition, 12mo, cloth, price 2s. 3c?., 

SUGGESTIVE HINTS 

TOWARDS IMPROVED SECULAR INSTRUCTION. 

MAKING IT BEAR UPON PRACTICAL LIFE. 
Intended for the use of Schoolmasters and Teachers in our Elementary Schools, 
for those engaged in the Private Instruction of Children at Home, and for others 
taking an interest in National Education. 

By EICHAED DAWES, A.M., Dean op Heeepobd. 

CONTENTS. 

Introduction — Grammar — Poetry. 

Questions on Materials of Food, Clothing, etc., etc. 

Exercises for Children to write on their Slates at School, and on Paper in the 

Geography — Physical Geography — Natural History — Geology. [evening. 

English History- Arithmetic — Algebraic formula. 

Questions on the Economic Purposes of Life. 

Geometry — Diagrams — Land-measuring — Words ending in ometry and ology. 

Elementary Drawing — Mechanics — Natural Philosophy. 

Experiments— Barometer— Specific Gravity— Metals— Light. 

Table of the Velocity and Force of the Wind. 

Astronomy— Eclipses — Chemistry— A Knowledge of Common Things. 

Sources of Domestic Health and Comfort — Wages. 

Knowledge of Mechanic's and Labourer's Work. 

Explanation of Natural Phenomena. 

Statistics — Value of Labour in Manufactured Products. 

Conversational Lectures — A Loaf of Bread — The Cottage Fire. 

Observations on the Duties of a Schoolmaster. 

State of the Cottages of the Poor — Ignorance of the Eural Districts. 

Tables — Numerical Constants — Time of Light Travelling. 

Specific Gravity — Barometrical Height and corresponding Temperature at which 

Water Boils. 
Melting Points of different Substances— Boiling Points of different Liquids. 
Freezing Points of Liquids — Linear Dilation of Solids and Liquids by Heat. 
Latitude and Longitude of different places, and Mean Temperature of the Seasons. 
List of Philosophical and other Apparatus for use in Schools. 
Third Edition, 12mo, cloth, price 2s., 

LESSONS ON THE PHENOMENA 

OP 

INDUSTRIAL LIFE, 

AND THE CONDITIONS OF INDUSTRIAL SUCCESS. 
Edited by EICHAED DAWES, A.M., Dean op Hbbefobd. 

Contents.— Industry— Knowledge and Skill— Economy— Wealth— Capital 
— Profit— Wages — Property — Eent— Division of Labour— Value — Measures and 
Weights— Money— Precious Metals— Credit and Bills— Banking— Bates of Ex- 
change—Paper Money— Insurance — Price— Interest and Annuities— Industrial 
Progress— Emigration— Base Money— Eestrictions— Industrial Derangement- 
Combinations — Strikes and Lock Outs— Taxation— Prooerty vacant by Death. 

GROOMBRIDGKE & SONS, 5, PATERNOSTER ROW. 



PRIZE ESSAY— SOCIETY OF ARTS. 

Crown 8vo, cloth, price 7s. 6d., 

THE NATIONAL DEBT FINANCIALLY 
CONSIDERED. 

By EDWAED CAPPS. 
To this Essay the Prize of Two Hundred Guineas was unanimously awarded 
by the adjudicators appointed by the Society of Arts, July, 1858. 



Second Edition, 12mo, cloth, price 2s. 6d. t 

A HANDY GUIDE TO SAFE INVEST- 
MENTS. 

Forming a Popular and Practical Treatise upon the Nature and Character of 
Public Securities ; showing the several Descriptions, with the Mode of 
Transacting Business at the Stock Exchange, etc. 

By GRESHAM OMNIUM. 



8vo, cloth, 

THE HISTORY OF THE COMMERCIAL 
CRISIS 

OP 1857 AND 1858. 
By D. MORIER EVAN'S. 



Crown 8vo, cloth, 

FACTS, FAILURES, AND FRAUDS. 

REVELATIONS : 

FINANCIAL, MERCANTILE, CRIMINAL. 

By D. MORIER EVANS. 



Second Edition, 8vo, cloth, price 3s. 6d. t 

THE PRINCIPLES OF CURRENCY AND 
• BANKING. 

Being Five Lectures delivered in the Queen's College, Cork, to the Students in 

Arts of the Third Year. 

By EICHAED HORNER MILLS, A.M., 

Barrister at Law, Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Economy in 

Queen's College, Cork. 



8vo, cloth, price 9s. Gd., 

A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE 
CURRENCY. 

Comprising a Brief Review of the most Eminent Writers on the subject. 
By JAMES MACLAREN. 

CONTENTS. 

Period of a Metallic Currency. 

First Period of a Mixed Currency of Gold and Bank Notes Convertible for Gold. 

Period of Inconvertible Bank Notes. 

Second Period of a Mixed Currency of Bank Notes and Gold. 

The New Gold— The Crisis of 1857. 



GROOMBRID&E & SONS, 5, PATERNOSTER ROW. 



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